Re: OldWorld floppy images
On Tue, Mar 23, 2004 at 03:26:21AM -0500, Rick Thomas wrote:
> Hi Jeremie!
>
> I downloaded the images.
Cool.
> The first thing I noticed was that the root.img was more than
> 1.440 MB long.
>
> The second thing that I noticed was that "fdformat" and
> "superformat" don't work on powerpc hardware, so I can't create a
> 1.920 MB formatted floppy to put root.img onto. For example, when
> I try to do "fdformat /dev/fd0" I get an error message:
> "ioctl(FDFMTBEG): Inappropriate ioctl for device". So the largest
> image I can write to media is 1.440 MB.
>
> I decided to try the boot.img anyway since it was the right size.
> I could at least see if my systems would boot with it.
>
> The third thing I noticed was that the floppy drives hadn't been
> used for years (literally) and they were *dirty*. The blank
> floppy disks I had around the house were about the same age, so I
> couldn't trust them either. So I went out and got a drive
> cleaning kit and a box of brand-new floppy disks. (I had to go to
> three stores before I found one that carried floppy drive cleaning
> kits. Floppy disks are seriously going out of style!) After a
> thorough cleaning...
>
> I was able to write the boot.img and read it back without error.
> The original boot.img and the read-back file compared bit-for-bit,
> so I figured I had a good one.
>
> First, I tried it on the machine that wrote it (a beige G3 at 300
> MHz). It succeeded in booting (got a "happy-mac" icon that
> changed after a while to an icon of Tux Penguin snuggling up to a
> happy-mac.) Of course, when it ejected the boot floppy (presumably
> because it wanted the root floppy inserted -- though there was no
> indication on the screen that this was the case. I assume that is
> normal?) I had no root floppy to insert. But I felt good that I'd
> gotten that far!
>
> Next I tried it on a different machine (a powermac 6500 at
> 225MHz). It got to the point of the Tux-and-Mac icon, but the
> drive made grinding noises and it never ejected the disk. It just
> hung. I believe that the floppy drive on that machine is
> terminally old/tired/flakey, even after a couple of thorough
> cleanings. It's not altogether surprising, since in a previous
> life, this machine was used (and abused!) by students in a public
> computer lab. I'll try swapping the floppy drive with a known
> good one and try again. Though that may take a couple of days.
>
> So, can we make a root.img file that will fit on a 1.440 MB disk?
I think Jeremie was also struggling with this. I believe it is possible
to split the root.img, but not sure about the principle.
Jeremie, what was the latest comment on that ?
Friendly,
Sven Luther
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