Date: Fri, 2 Apr 2004 20:11:07 -0500 (EST) From: Don <don@calis.blacksun.org> To: Jerry McAllister <jerrymc@clunix.cl.msu.edu> Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: 5.2 Help Message-ID: <20040402200638.Y13060@calis.blacksun.org> In-Reply-To: <200404022219.i32MJ5W14141@clunix.cl.msu.edu> References: <200404022219.i32MJ5W14141@clunix.cl.msu.edu>
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> Gee, I have made a lot of bootable floppies - we used to distribute > our system on floppy+DAT tape - and had to format all of the floppies > in order to write boot images to them. Sometimes we even had to reformat > floppies that were preformatted from the vendor. If you choose to waste your time formatting the disks that is your perogative :) > And double Gee, I just read through the piece on preparing the media > from the handbook section you just posted and golly if it doesn't say > to format the floppies yourself. So, what sup with your post? > > 2. Prepare the Floppy Disks > > You must prepare one floppy disk per image file you had to download. It is > imperative that these disks are free from defects. The easiest way to test > this is to format the disks for yourself. Do not trust pre-formatted > floppies. The format utility in Windows will not tell about the presence > of bad blocks, it simply marks them as ``bad'' and ignores them. It is > advised that you use brand new floppies if choosing this installation route. > ...etc... > Gee golly whiz Wally! If you had bothered to read the section you quoted you would see that the _ONLY_ reason you are told to format the floppy is to test it to make sure it is free of defects. rawrite dumps a raw disk image to the floppy and could care less what format is on the disk when you run it. The original poster seemed to be under the impression that you formatted the disk and them copied kern.flp onto the disk. This is obviously a mistake. Moreover, a floppy disk has a _raw_ capacity of 1.44 MB. Even if you don't copy the system files to the floppy disk you will lose space on the disk simply by formatting it because the file system itself uses up disk space. -Don
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