

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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