Date: Sun, 14 Dec 1997 22:34:00 -0500 (EST) From: Mike Jeays <jeays@statcan.ca> To: Greg Lehey <grog@lemis.com> Cc: grobin@accessv.com, questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Accessing Floppy Drive Message-ID: <Pine.SOL.3.96.971214222943.2617A-100000@austral> In-Reply-To: <19971215091243.56481@lemis.com>
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On Mon, 15 Dec 1997, Greg Lehey wrote: > On Sun, Dec 14, 1997 at 03:50:07PM -0500, Geoffrey Robinson wrote: > > This is a rather basic question but I'm new to UNIX so you'll have > > to excuse me. I can't seem to figure out how to mount, or otherwise > > access a UNIX formatted floppy. > > Why do you want to do this? > > > When I needed to transfer a file from FreeBSD to Windows I found out > > how to mount an MS-DOS formatted floppy but when I try using mount > > to mount a UNIX formatted floppy (formatted with fdformat) in fd0 I > > get an error message about an incorrect super block. What do I do? > > You already have the simple answer from somebody else. But he didn't > tell you that this will waste nearly half the capacity of the floppy. > Normally, it's not a good idea to put file systems on floppy. You > can't use them to exchange data with other (non-BSD) UNIX systems, > either, since the format differs from one UNIX system to another. If > you want to use the floppy for backup or transfer purposes, tar is > better, and it doesn't require a file system. To copy files to the > floppy, enter: > > # tar cvf /dev/rfd0 <list of files> > > To extract them into the current directory or in a subdirectory of the > current directory, enter: > > # tar xvf /dev/rfc0 <list of files> > > If you omit the <list of files> when extracting, it will extract > everything for you. > > Greg > I use the following script, part of which I got from someone else; I can't remeber who : #!/bin/sh # Floppy formats: # # To make a filesystem on a floppy: # fdformat [-f <size>] fd<drive>[.<size>] # disklabel -B -r -w fd<drive>[.<size>] fd<size> # newfs <opts> fd<drive>[.<size>] # fdformat -q fd0.1440 disklabel -B -r -w fd0.1440 fd1440 newfs -c 1 fd0.1440 I don't find that half of the space is wasted, and have had many diskettes work reliably in this mode. It beats using DOS-format disks, amd losing the long filenames with case sensitivity.
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