floppy disks Technical Information floppy disks
To use a floppy disk with COHERENT, you must:
(1) format it with /etc/fdformat,
(2) build an empty filesystem on it with /etc/mkfs,
(3) mount it with /bin/mount or /etc/mount,
(4) copy files to or from it, e.g. with cp or cpdir, and
(5) unmount it with /bin/umount or /etc/umount.
Some commonly used diskette device names and formats are:
Device name Sectors/track Heads Sectors Bytes Format
/dev/f9a0 9 2 720 360 KB 5.25"
/dev/fqa0 9 2 1440 720 KB 3.5"
/dev/fha0 15 2 2400 1.2 MB 5.25"
/dev/fva0 18 2 2880 1.44 MB 3.5"
Device names ending in '0' indicate drive A:, names ending in '1'
indicate drive B:.
For example, to copy directory /dir to a 5.25" high density dis-
kette in drive 0 (A:):
/etc/fdformat -a /dev/fha0
/etc/badscan -v -o proto /dev/fha0 2400
/etc/mkfs /dev/fha0 proto
rm proto
/etc/mount /dev/fha0 /f0
cpdir -vd /dir /f0/dir
/etc/umount /dev/fha0
/bin/mount and /bin/umount provide handy abbreviations for mount
and umount commands. For example,
mount f0
cpdir -vd /dir /f0/dir
umount f0
is a more convenient way to perform the last three commands in
the above example.
***** See Also *****
fd, fdformat, technical information
***** Notes *****
Because COHERENT does not write cached disk data to the disk un-
til a sync occurs or the disk device is unmounted, removing a
disk from the disk drive without unmounting it can produce incor-
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floppy disks Technical Information floppy disks
rect data or an invalid filesystem on the disk. Another disk in-
serted into the drive after a disk has removed without unmounting
may be clobbered by data intended for the first disk. Always be
sure to unmount disks before removing them from the disk drive.
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