how to reformat floppies that have data on them

[Rick Stevens]

On Thu, 2007-04-12 at 13:43 +0200, Nigel Henry wrote:
> On Thursday 12 April 2007 01:17, Rick Stevens wrote:
> > On Wed, 2007-04-11 at 15:10 -0800, Fred Erickson wrote:
> > > On Wed, 2007-04-11 at 19:29 +0200, Nigel Henry wrote:
> > > > On Tuesday 10 April 2007 23:06, Mikkel L. Ellertson wrote:
> > > > > Rick Stevens wrote:
> > > > > > For an MS-DOS floppy,
> > > > > >
> > > > > >  #fdformat /dev/fd0H1440;mformat a:
> > > > >
> > > > > I don't think that udev creates anything but the /dev/fd0 for the
> > > > > first floppy with the default settings...
> > > > >
> > > > > Mikkel
> > > >
> > > > Ok. Udev doesn't come into my equation, as I'm doing this on FC2.
> > > >
> > > > I've now got a floppy formatted with a low level format using the
> > > > following.
> > > >
> > > > [root at localhost djmons]# fdformat -n /dev/fd0H1440
> > > > Double-sided, 80 tracks, 18 sec/track. Total capacity 1440 kB.
> > > > Formatting ... done
> 
> > > > Anyone can help with the correct syntax for using mformat to add a
> > > > filesystem to this low level formatted floppy.
> > > >
> > > > Very frustrating.
> > > >
> > > > Nigel.
> > >
> > > Would one of the mkfs variants work for this?
> >
> > You could try
> >
> >  mkfs -t msdos /dev/fd0
> >  mkdosfs /dev/fd0
> 
> Sorry that this problem is dragging on. I tried mkfs, and mkdosfs, but got 
> errors again, as with mformat. See below.
> 
> root at localhost djmons]# /sbin/mkdosfs -v /dev/fd0
> mkdosfs 2.8 (28 Feb 2001)
> /dev/fd0 has 2 heads and 18 sectors per track,
> logical sector size is 512,
> using 0xf0 media descriptor, with 0 sectors;
> file system has 2 16-bit FATs and 2 sectors per cluster.
> FAT size is -32639 sectors, and provides 32631 clusters.
> Root directory contains 224 slots.
> Volume ID is 461e15e1, no volume label.
> mkdosfs: unable to allocate space for FAT image in memory
> [root at localhost djmons]#
> 
> Get the same "unable to allocate space for FAT image in memory" using mkfs, 
> and also logwatch gave be a bunch of kernel errors when trying mformat 
> yesterday, as below.
> 
>  --------------------- Kernel Begin ------------------------ 
> 
> WARNING:  Kernel Errors Present
>    Buffer I/O error on device fd0, l...:  14 Time(s)
>    end_request: I/O error, dev fd0, sector...:  15 Time(s)
>    floppy0: data CRC error: track 0, head 0...:  18 Time(s)
>    floppy0: data CRC error: track 1, head 0...:  6 Time(s)
>    floppy0: data CRC error: track 2, head 0...:  6 Time(s)
> 
>  ---------------------- Kernel End ------------------------- 
> 
> I don't believe there is any problem with mkfs, mkdosfs, or mformat, but 
> something is stopping them creating a file system on this low level formatted 
> floppy.
> 
> Any further ideas folks.

I'm at a loss.  Just for giggles, can you try a "mke2fs /dev/fd0" and
see if you can put an ext2 filesystem on one of the floppies.  If not,
then I have to think there's a problem with the media or the drive
itself.  In that case, try a fresh box of floppies first, then try to
get a new drive.  Here in the US a new floppy drive is only about $10US.
I don't know what they are in France.

> btw. I looked at the other machine, that I thought I could put the firewall 
> on, and that won't boot from cdrom either.

You're certain the CD was burned correctly?
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- Rick Stevens, Principal Engineer             rstevens at internap.com -
- VitalStream, Inc.                       http://www.vitalstream.com -
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