How to Format 1MB Floppy

[Adam Retter]

Okay chaps,

im finding it surprisingly difficult to format a 1MB floppy on freebsd.
I want to format it for msdos.

I am trying -

# newfs -t dos /dev/fd0

but it says -

newfs: ioctl (GDINFO}: Invalid argument
newfs: /dev/fd0: can't read disk label; disk type must be specified.

I can see from man newfs that to specify the disk type you use -T but im
not sure what the argument for it is?

The disks have this printed on them - Imation 2DD 1.0MB

Thanks

Adam.

--
Adam Retter <ad...@otterycomputers.com>
Ottery Office and Computer Ltd.
Tel: +44(0)1404 814946
Fax: +44(0)1404 811786

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[Sumio KOBAYASHI]

Hi, Adam

On Mon, 07 Jun 2004 12:19:01 +0100,
Adam Retter <ad...@otterycomputers.com> wrote on
Subject: How to Format 1MB Floppy:

> I want to format it for msdos.
>
> I am trying -
>
> # newfs -t dos /dev/fd0

Please try 'man newfs_msdos'.
'newfs -t' should be followed by #tracks/cylinder

Sumio,

----------
Sumio KOBAYASHI <s...@dkl.ath.cx>
favorites : BSD, Perl, GNU, TeX, BJ
unfavorites: W*s, M*t, W*d, BG

[Poul-Henning Kamp]

In message <1086607141....@wokshopbsd.oocltd.dom>, Adam Retter writes:
>
>Okay chaps,
>
>im finding it surprisingly difficult to format a 1MB floppy on freebsd.
>I want to format it for msdos.

See fdcontrol(8)

I belive you want "fdcontrol -f 720 fd0".

--
Poul-Henning Kamp | UNIX since Zilog Zeus 3.20
p...@FreeBSD.ORG | TCP/IP since RFC 956
FreeBSD committer | BSD since 4.3-tahoe
Never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by incompetence.

[Adam Retter]

Okay guys not having any luck with mtools / newfs_msdos or fdcontrol

I guess i need to specify the heads and tracks per side etc etc but how
can i find out what these are meant to be for 2DD disks ?

Also someone mentioned that these 1mb disks only format as 720kb - is
that true?

Thanks Adam.

--
Adam Retter <ad...@otterycomputers.com>
Ottery Office and Computer Ltd.
Tel: +44(0)1404 814946
Fax: +44(0)1404 811786

_______________________________________________

[Erich Dollansky]

Hi,

Adam Retter wrote:
> Okay guys not having any luck with mtools / newfs_msdos or fdcontrol
>
> I guess i need to specify the heads and tracks per side etc etc but how
> can i find out what these are meant to be for 2DD disks ?
>
> Also someone mentioned that these 1mb disks only format as 720kb - is
> that true?
>

Yes.

I can"t tell you with the parameters but I remember that those disks use
a different density to write to the disk. This means that the head,
sector and track values are the same as for 1.44 disks but the density
is different.

Erich

[Daniel Ellard]

On Mon, 7 Jun 2004, Adam Retter wrote:

> Also someone mentioned that these 1mb disks only format as 720kb - is
> that true?

That was probably me... What I meant is that there's a built-in
option to newfs_msdos for 720K disks, but I don't think there's one
for 1MB disks. If you want to use the entire disk, and the 1MB is the
real size (not some phony marketing size) then you'll need to specify
the geometry to the disk explicitly. You'll need to get this from
the disk vendor, I guess.

Given that it sounds like nothing is working: have you tried a different
disk, or a different drive? Maybe it's a hardware problem.

-Dan

[Erich Dollansky]

Hi,

Daniel Ellard wrote:
> On Mon, 7 Jun 2004, Adam Retter wrote:
>
>
>>Also someone mentioned that these 1mb disks only format as 720kb - is
>>that true?
>
>
> That was probably me... What I meant is that there's a built-in
> option to newfs_msdos for 720K disks, but I don't think there's one
> for 1MB disks. If you want to use the entire disk, and the 1MB is the

1MB disks and 720 KB disks are the same. 1MB is the capacity including
checksums and so on while 720 KB is the capacity which can be used.

Erich

[Olaf Hoyer]

On Mon, 7 Jun 2004, Daniel Ellard wrote:

> On Mon, 7 Jun 2004, Adam Retter wrote:
>
> > Also someone mentioned that these 1mb disks only format as 720kb - is
> > that true?
>
> That was probably me... What I meant is that there's a built-in
> option to newfs_msdos for 720K disks, but I don't think there's one
> for 1MB disks. If you want to use the entire disk, and the 1MB is the
> real size (not some phony marketing size) then you'll need to specify
> the geometry to the disk explicitly. You'll need to get this from
> the disk vendor, I guess.
>

The raw capacity of those 3,5", DD disks is 1MB unformatted, and
formatted for _PC_ its 720 kb.

There were some different architectures, like Commodore Amiga and I
think Apple, that used a different format strategy and were able to use
more of that space.

(Anyone remember VGA-Copy under DOS? also some tool to get some real
weird formats done)

HTH
Olaf

--
Olaf Hoyer oho...@gaff.hhhr.ision.net
Fuerchterliche Erlebniss geben zu raten,
ob der, welcher sie erlebt, nicht etwas Fuerchterliches ist.
(Nietzsche, Jenseits von Gut und Boese)

[Dave]

On Mon, 7 Jun 2004 16:20:54 +0200 (CEST), you wrote:

>(Anyone remember VGA-Copy under DOS? also some tool to get some real
>weird formats done)

http://home.att.net/~short.stop/freesoft/disk1.htm#floppyutil

:-)

Dave

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