Extended floppy : summary
I come back to the subject I have launched.
To summarize, we can use more "space" on a high density double sided floppy,
by using uncommon format.
There are two problems :
1) Because these formats are unusual, the BIOS doesn't automagically
recognize them, and try to access them as normal 1.44 Mb floppies -> you
need a bootloader to manage the format, and dd'ing Linux can not work
2) There are safe formats (that can be used everywhere, and that are not
dangerous for the hardware), and more cutting edges ones. I list only safe
ones :
- 1680 Kb (21 sectors of 512b) : safe, work with Lilo, could work
with a modified GRUB
- 1760 Kb (11 sectors of 1Kb) : safe, but at the moment, no
bootloader designed for that
- Mixed Size Sectors : some safe, but not bootable, the more interesting
format is the one derived from 2m, because the first track is a
standard one (18 sectors of 512b). So if a stage1_5 can be put
here in order to recognize the information and to drive the
floppy, 1840 Kb can be used
At the moment, at least 1680 Kb can be used. But I will work for some
support for 2m with GRUB, allowing 1840 Kb.
Cheers,
--
Thierry LARONDE, Centre de Ressources Informatiques, Archamps - France
http://www.cri74.org
PingOO, serveur de com sur distribution GNU/Linux: http://www.pingoo.org
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