Re: superformat troubles
> I'm trying to format a floppy disk using superformat from fdutils 5.2pl4 but
> it fails leaving the kernel in an unstable state. I'm then unable to run other
> programs as the kernel tells me there is a bug in the free list.
You did not mention which platform you use. It is long known that you
cannot format a floppy on sun4c under RH4.2. Firstly, counter in one of
busy loops is too small, but this does not help, because secondly it
writes garbage to track anyways. I dare to note that faster machines
may suffer as well.
I am cracking my head now trying to understand why SunOS has no difficulties
where we have. Worse yet, Alain does not want to support floppy code because
he is tired from it. I am so desperate that I ordered a book at Amazon
which should explain the floppy programming interface, $35 value.
And PLEASE don't remind me about 82078 datashit from Intel -
errata for it would be thicker than the original.
Sun PCI machines have DMA for floppy, it may help (three line fix to
the driver is needed to enable it, though).
--Pete
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