papo@CS.Cornell.EDU (Luis R. Anaya) (04/04/91)
Hi! I was happily mkfs'ing some floppies when suddently the machine blew up and said: Unrecoverable write error on device 2/0 block 359 Unvercoverable disk error on device 2/0 block 359 Non Maskable Interrumpt Process Number -2 pc = 0x0060:0x000009c7 I though that was the drive so I test it out with MS-DOS format. It formatted the disk in ms-dos and when I mkfs the floppies they formatted in MINIX. What I'm doing wrong? -- Luis Roberto Anaya-Rivera papo@cs.cornell.edu -- disclaimer This message comes from an OVERWORKED, OVERLOOKED, OVERDRAWN, but still basically fun person.
kevin@nuchat.sccsi.com (Kevin Brown) (04/04/91)
In article <1991Apr4.052424.26999@cs.cornell.edu> papo@CS.Cornell.EDU (Luis R. Anaya) writes: >Hi! > >I was happily mkfs'ing some floppies when suddently the machine blew >up and said: > >Unrecoverable write error on device 2/0 block 359 >Unvercoverable disk error on device 2/0 block 359 > >Non Maskable Interrumpt >Process Number -2 pc = 0x0060:0x000009c7 > >I though that was the drive so I test it out with MS-DOS format. > >It formatted the disk in ms-dos and when I mkfs the floppies >they formatted in MINIX. > >What I'm doing wrong? Well, I can't necessarily fault you for not RTFMing, since I don't see the relevent information in TFM, either. mkfs just creates a 'file system', which is a combination of a 'superblock' which contains information about the file system as a whole, a 'bitmap' which is consulted to determine which blocks have been allocated and which haven't, and a root directory. The problem is, of course, that mkfs doesn't FORMAT the disk at all. All it does is write the base file system information out to the device you specify, and it expects formatted media to be there. The upshot of all this is that you have to format your floppies before you can use them. Unfortuantely, unless you have the 'format' program, you have to do the formatting from DOS. If there is sufficient interest, I'll be glad to post the 'format' program. I think it requires 1.5, but I'm not sure (Bruce?)... >Luis Roberto Anaya-Rivera papo@cs.cornell.edu -- Kevin Brown Disclaimer: huh? kevin@nuchat.sccsi.com csci31f7@cl.uh.edu Minix -- the Unix[tm] of the 90's. System V -- the Multics of the 90's. :-)
bob@wyse.wyse.com (Bob McGowen x4312 dept208) (04/09/91)
kevin@nuchat.sccsi.com responded to a message about the kernel going bananas, refering to the need to use formated disks before doing an mkfs. He mentioned having source for a format command under minix. My mail to him bounced (I think thats the right term, even though it did not even make it out of my organization). So: Kevin, I am interested in the source. Please post or mail me a copy(I hope you can get to me better than I can to you). Thanks. Bob McGowan (standard disclaimer, these are my own ...) Product Support, Wyse Technology, San Jose, CA ..!uunet!wyse!bob bob@wyse.com