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SubjectRe: floppy question of the hour
On Sunday 01 June 2008, Jan Engelhardt wrote:
>On Wednesday 2008-05-28 00:26, Gene Heskett wrote:
>>On Tuesday 27 May 2008, Phillip Susi wrote:
>>>Gene Heskett wrote:
>>
>>Also, does anyone know how long after a floppy is inserted before it is
>>recognized? From observation today, it appears to be something in the 5
>> minute territory before a getfdprm returns data instead of "/dev/fd0: no
>> such device".
>
>I have a SONY USB floppy drive which used to get read within 2s
>after inserting a new floppy. Which means it somehow signalled
>the host, probably through an USB command.
>
>Just as I tried again now (with 2.6.23.17), this does not happen
>anymore so I suspect udev or the kernel changed in some way.

This is attached directly to end connector on the 34 pin floppy cable.

What I have found that seems to work, is to put the disk in, then hit it with a
junk, 1 block read from dd. That will take about 25-30 seconds to fail with an
I/O error.

Then I can do the 'setfdprm' thing, check it with getfdprm, and go ahead and
write the disk image with dd.

But if I don't knock on the door & fail once, just relying on getting a good
response from getfdprm from the setfdprm operation before trying dd, it will
_never_ work. It has to be hammered on by dd before setfdprm and getfdprm will
work, and then dd can write to it just fine.

Houston, we have a problem. But I now know how to work around it sorta like
McGiver would do I guess, but what about the next user who will never see this
thread without a truly diligent search? He will be similarly screwed, but the
only heavy breathing will be from frustration.

If the kernel should somehow shrink so it could fit on a floppy again, I'd bet
this would be fixed yet this week. :) But we all know what the chances of that
happening are. :( It would however, be muchly appreciated by us old farts
using floppies to get stuff to/from a legacy computer.

Thanks guys.

--
Cheers, Gene
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)
Wash: "It's Jayne being so generous with his cut that confuses and frightens
me."

Zoe: "It does kind of freeze the blood."
--Episode #10, "War Stories"


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