From: aclark@netcom.com (Al Clark) Subject: Floppy problem with .99pl3 and pl4. Date: 28 Jan 1993 20:29:27 GMT
On upgrading from .97pl6 to .99pl3 and then pl4, my 5 1/4 inch fd0
floppy stopped writing correctly. The 3 1/2 fd1 is okay. The
hardware works correctly both with ROM diagnostics and MSDOS.
It used to work correctly with linux, through .97pl6. I skipped .98
Both .99pl3 and .99pl4 have same symptoms; disk reads okay, barfs on write,
with kernel messages. After writing to disk, reads are bad, but
disk can be reformatted under Diagnostics or DOS, and then read okay.
I have now established, I think, that problem is unique to .99,
based on following test case.
Test case; writing Image to disk.
1 - Under linux, mounted C:, copied .97pl6 Image to dos partition.
2 - Under DOS, wrote above Image to a: using rawrite. No problems.
3 - Booted using a: drive, without touching floppy.
4 - Did dd of .99pl4 Image to fd0; worked with only one reset msg. (see below)
(Following step verifies floppy was good).
5 - Still without touching floppy, rebooted from a:
6 - Did dd of .99pl4 Image to fd0; barfed on write with many resets. (see below)
Screen dumps of both steps 5 and 6 follow:
=============== Step 5 Screen dump using .97pl6 ======================
516 # setfdprm /dev/fd0 1200/1200
517 # dd if=Image of=/dev/fd0 bs=8192
35+1 records in
35+1 records out
floppy 0: sector not found: track 2, head 0, sector 1
floppy 0: sector not found: track 2, head 0, sector 1
floppy 0: sector not found: track 2, head 0, sector 1
floppy 0: sector not found: track 2, head 0, sector 1
Reset-floppy called
=============== Step 6 Screen dump using .99pl4 ======================
======= NOTE: not complete, had difficulty capturing kernel writes ===
501 # set fdprm /dev/fd0 1200/1200
502 # dd if=Image of=/dev/fd0 bs=8192
35+1 records in
35+1 records out
floppy 0: sector not found: track 2, head 0, sector 1
floppy 0: sector not found: track 2, head 0, sector 1
floppy 0: sector not found: track 2, head 0, sector 1
floppy 0: sector not found: track 2, head 0, sector 1
Reset-floppy called
floppy 0: sector not found: track 2, head 0, sector 1
Reset-floppy called
floppy 0: sector not found: track 2, head 0, sector 1
Reset-floppy called
floppy 0: sector not found: track 2, head 0, sector 1
Reset-floppy called
floppy 0: sector not found: track 2, head 0, sector 1
Reset-floppy called
floppy 0: sector not found: track 2, head 0, sector 3
Reset-floppy called
floppy 0: sector not found: track 2, head 0, sector 3
Reset-floppy called
============= more of similar not captured ==============
floppy 0: sector not found: track 2, head 1, sector 12
Reset-floppy called
floppy 0: sector not found: track 2, head 1, sector 12
Reset-floppy called
floppy 0: sector not found: track 2, head 1, sector 12
Reset-floppy called
floppy 0: sector not found: track 2, head 1, sector 12
Reset-floppy called
floppy 0: sector not found: track 2, head 1, sector 12
Reset-floppy called
floppy 0: sector not found: track 2, head 1, sector 12
floppy I/O error
dev 0200, sector 86
Reset-floppy called
floppy 0: sector not found: track 2, head 1, sector 14
floppy 0: sector not found: track 2, head 1, sector 14
floppy 0: sector not found: track 2, head 1, sector 14
floppy 0: sector not found: track 2, head 1, sector 14
Reset-floppy called
floppy 0: sector not found: track 2, head 1, sector 14
Reset-floppy called
floppy 0: sector not found: track 2, head 1, sector 14
Reset-floppy called
==================== abort by removing floppy from drive ==============
============= more of similar not captured ending with ==============
35+1 records in
35+1 records out
dd: Image: Invalid argument
======================== End of .99pl4 screen dump stuff ============
-- Al - aclark@netcom.com - My opinions are my own.