[comp.unix.xenix] Funny floppy problems

tif@cpe.UUCP (11/04/88)

Written  7:30 pm  Nov  1, 1988 by csun.UUCP!cacsc222%mx in cpe:comp.unix.xenix
>A friend is READS 360K floppys in his 1.2M drive, and they become useless
>in a 360K drive (must be reformatted).

I hope it is painfully obvious that if we are talking about (for instance)
mount disks that reading a file causes a write to the disk (unless mounted
as read-only).  I would stifle my excitement until testing it with a
write-protect on the floppy to make sure that no WRITE is being done.

			Paul Chamberlain
			Computer Product Engineering, Tandy Corp.
			bellcore!motown!sys1!cpe!tif

skrenta@eecs.nwu.edu (Richard Skrenta) (11/04/88)

Are you reading the floppy under Dos or Xenix?  If you simply "dir"
a diskette under DOS, it shouldn't touch it at all.  If you're using
the Xenix "mount" command, however, I believe xenix writes stuff to the
floppy.  You can test this out by write-protecting your disk--I don't
think you'll be able to mount it.  In any case, if you've got a write
protect tab on your disk, nothing should be able to happen to it.  If 
something does anyway, that's an evil drive.

Rich Skrenta

jbayer@ispi.UUCP (id for use with uunet/usenet) (11/05/88)

In article <3700007@eecs.nwu.edu>, skrenta@eecs.nwu.edu (Richard Skrenta) writes:
> Are you reading the floppy under Dos or Xenix?  If you simply "dir"
> a diskette under DOS, it shouldn't touch it at all.  If you're using
> the Xenix "mount" command, however, I believe xenix writes stuff to the
> floppy.  You can test this out by write-protecting your disk--I don't
> think you'll be able to mount it.  In any case, if you've got a write

	^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

The header says it all.



Jonathan Bayer
Intelligent Software Products, Inc.