djk@cs.mu.OZ.AU (David Keegel) (06/24/91)
O/S Minix 1.5ph Processor 386sx PC Floppy 5.25" 1.2Mb Hard disk part. 1=DOS 4.0; 2=/usr; 3=ram image Shoelace boot from floppy; root copied from hd2. Extras minix-386, virtual consoles My floppy drive has recently stopped working. Strangely enough, this corresponds to a recent period of lots of Minix use (like getting minix-386 going, shoelace, vc, uucp). I seem to remember some news about Minix doing nasty things to floppies, can someone help me out. Symptoms: Minix won't boot (from floppy) -- mostly the disk just spins and spins, no "Minix 1.5 ..." message. Sometimes I get that message then "Disk error. Automatic reboot." My BIOS diags say stuff like CRC error, and that my drive speed is 370 instead of 360. Suppementary question: using shoelace to load /etc/system/* from the boot floppy and then mounting root from ram image on hd3 causes my floppy motor to stay on until I access fd0 (eg: df /dev/fd0). Is this a known problem with shoelace? Can I stop it? -- +--------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | A heathen is one who hasn't seen The Light. | David Keegel | | A heretic says it is a torch. | djk@cs.mu.OZ.AU | +--------------------------------------------------------------------------+
nall@sun8.scri.fsu.edu (John Nall) (06/25/91)
In article <9117523.15390@mulga.cs.mu.OZ.AU> djk@cs.mu.OZ.AU (David Keegel) writes: > >My floppy drive has recently stopped working. Strangely enough, this >corresponds to a recent period of lots of Minix use (like getting >minix-386 going, shoelace, vc, uucp). I seem to remember some news >about Minix doing nasty things to floppies, can someone help me out. > Minix eats 1.2 meg floppy drives. I ruined two different drives with it, before I started using Shoelace. However, there was also a better version of bootblok.s posted to the net which is another way of solving the problem. >Suppementary question: using shoelace to load /etc/system/* from the >boot floppy and then mounting root from ram image on hd3 causes my >floppy motor to stay on until I access fd0 (eg: df /dev/fd0). Is this >a known problem with shoelace? Can I stop it? > Yep, a "known problem" (undocumented feature). You can modify the source of shoelace, or just change your /etc/rc file to do a mount and unmount of /dev/fd0, which is a klutz but easy to do. (That way, you can stick it in the queue of "things to be fixed someday real soon..." and forget about it. -- John W. Nall | Supercomputer Computations Research Institute nall@sun8.scri.fsu.edu | Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL 32306 "Complete solitude is a torment which not even Hell threatens."
ching@brahms.amd.com (Mike Ching) (06/25/91)
In article <3302@sun13.scri.fsu.edu> nall@sun8.scri.fsu.edu (John Nall) writes: >In article <9117523.15390@mulga.cs.mu.OZ.AU> djk@cs.mu.OZ.AU (David Keegel) writes: >> ... >>Suppementary question: using shoelace to load /etc/system/* from the >>boot floppy and then mounting root from ram image on hd3 causes my >>floppy motor to stay on until I access fd0 (eg: df /dev/fd0). Is this >>a known problem with shoelace? Can I stop it? >> > Yep, a "known problem" (undocumented feature). You can modify > the source of shoelace, or just change your /etc/rc file to do a > mount and unmount of /dev/fd0, which is a klutz but easy to do. > (That way, you can stick it in the queue of "things to be fixed > someday real soon..." and forget about it. > I ended up using the trick in the install procedure for testing shoelace and put a wini boot sector on the floppy. The floppy motor turns off and the boot is much faster since it's from the hard disk. Mike Ching
djk@cs.mu.OZ.AU (David Keegel) (06/25/91)
nall@sun8.scri.fsu.edu (John Nall) writes: ] Minix eats 1.2 meg floppy drives. I ruined two different ] drives with it, before I started using Shoelace. However, ] there was also a better version of bootblok.s posted to the ] net which is another way of solving the problem. Is there anything I can do about the drive apart from taking it back to the manufacturer? And if so, what can I tell them is wrong with it? I now use shoelace (have been for a few weeks), does this mean it won't (shouldn't) happen again? It does seem a bit slow reading the drive right at the start, but apart from that (and fd0 motor running) I'm quite happy to run shoelace, if it means not trashing my drives. ]> ... floppy motor to stay on until I access fd0 (eg: df /dev/fd0). ]> ] Yep, a "known problem" (undocumented feature). You can modify ] the source of shoelace, or just change your /etc/rc file to do a ] mount and unmount of /dev/fd0, which is a klutz but easy to do. Thanks. Anyone volunteering a patch for shoelace? -- +--------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | A heathen is one who hasn't seen The Light. | David Keegel | | A heretic says it is a torch. | djk@cs.mu.OZ.AU | +--------------------------------------------------------------------------+
SILVER50%snypotva.bitnet@cunyvm.cuny.edu (06/25/91)
Hello all. I am working on a project at Potsdam College in New York to try to get Minix to work with a Tiara\Ethernet card. Has anyone had any exper- ience with the net software? Could somebody also tell me about how to get 1.6 updates? Thanks - Micah Silverman
nall@sun8.scri.fsu.edu (John Nall) (06/26/91)
In article <9117614.22163@mulga.cs.mu.OZ.AU> djk@cs.mu.OZ.AU (David Keegel) writes: >nall@sun8.scri.fsu.edu (John Nall) writes: >] Minix eats 1.2 meg floppy drives. I ruined two different > >Is there anything I can do about the drive apart from taking it back >to the manufacturer? And if so, what can I tell them is wrong with it? (Sorry David...I answered the wrong question on the e-mail you sent, so I'll try again, but this time I'll just put it on the net). When my second drive got clobbered, I got suspicious, and got an electronic-tech friend of mine to look at it. He found that the drive speed was wrong and he COULD NOT GET IT TO ADJUST RIGHT. He didn't understand that, nor did I. Also, he found that the head was out of alignment. He told me that he could not fix the drive short of completely replacing a lot of stuff. I'm not a hardware person, so can't tell you anything other than pass on what my friend said to me. So far as will Shoelace do the same thing, if you listen to the sound your drive makes with the standard boot disk and with Shoelace, when booting up, it is quite different. So I am *assuming* that Shoelace is not evil. But someone else might be able to clarify that. -- John W. Nall | Supercomputer Computations Research Institute nall@sun8.scri.fsu.edu | Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL 32306 "Complete solitude is a torment which not even Hell threatens."
evans@syd.dit.CSIRO.AU (Bruce.Evans) (06/30/91)
In article <9117614.22163@mulga.cs.mu.OZ.AU> djk@cs.mu.OZ.AU (David Keegel) writes: >nall@sun8.scri.fsu.edu (John Nall) writes: >]> ... floppy motor to stay on until I access fd0 (eg: df /dev/fd0). >]> >] Yep, a "known problem" (undocumented feature). You can modify >] the source of shoelace, or just change your /etc/rc file to do a >] mount and unmount of /dev/fd0, which is a klutz but easy to do. > >Thanks. Anyone volunteering a patch for shoelace? Other workarounds: don't boot from a floppy (best); pause in shoelace to give the BIOS time to turn off the motor. Fix in shoelace: copy the 3 lines in bootblok.s where it says "kill the motor" to somewhere after shoelace has finished with the floppy. Fix in driver: add out_byte(DOR, ENABLE_INT); /* motor bits off */ somewhere in the initialization. Of course this should have been there from the beginning. -- Bruce Evans evans@syd.dit.csiro.au