klock@mitre-bedford.ARPA (Kent J. Lockhart) (06/16/87)
I've been trying to create a partition on my 30 meg RLL disk drive for use with MINIX -- so far without success. Using DOS 3.3 FDISK I was able to create an Extended DOS partition (partition #1) ... I already had a Primary DOS partition (partition #2) for use with DOS. My computer is an IBM PC (PC-2) with a Western Digital RLL controller and an ST238 winchester drive. When i attempt to run MINIX 1.1 mkfs using the /etc/hd1 driver the following messages were displayed: Winchester task got message from -1 Unrecoverable disk error on 3/1, bloc Hard disk won't reset The first error message was displayed multiple times before mkfs gave up and returned to the # prompt. I would like to solicit suggestions from anyone who has had this problem. (Or anyone else for that matter). Is it possible that the Extended DOS partition is not properly formatted such that mkfs does not see a properly prepared disk? Or, perhaps is it possible that i need a Western Digital as mentioned below? In article <1201@botter.cs.vu.nl> ast@cs.vu.nl (Andy Tanenbaum) writes: >On the same subject, I would like to include the western digital disk driver >in the next release as well. There was a lot of discussion about it earlier, >and I sort of lost track of it, but since the discussion died down, I presume >a working driver eventually became available. Will someone who has the >driver and followed the discussion well enough to know that they have the >most recent version send me mail. Then I will ask one of the people replying >to send me the driver. (Such a request may generate a lot of transatlantic >mail, but at least it will be short mail.) - Kent Lockhart
myxm@beta.UUCP (06/17/87)
The error you are experiencing is not the fauld of fdisk. Minix does not
give a flip about the type of partition it uses. (DOS 3.3 might complain
later on though...)
I had similar problems with the hard disk until I patched the wini.c
driver with hints from a posting by Garry Oliver and one by Harry
McGavren.
*=*=*=
Mike Mitchell
myxm@lanl.gov
{backbone}!cmcl2!lanl!myxmrde@eagle.UUCP (06/19/87)
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One thing I noticed while reading through the MINIX sources is that the
DISKFIX program probably doesn't work right on DOS 3.x hard disks.
The reason for this is that the DOS indicator in the partition record is
assumed to be 1; but in DOS 3.x it is in fact normally 4 (indicating a
DOS file system with 16 bit FATs).
To fix this, just change the constant at the start of the program (named
DOS_TYPE) from 1 to 4. Mind, to do it properly you should define a new
constant, perhaps DOS3_TYPE, and check for both. Assemble and link
DISKFIX. Use FDISK to get rid of all partitions, then to set up all
wanted MINIX partiitions (these will be marked as DOS ones by FDISK at
this stage). Run DISKFIX to convert all DOS partitions to MINIX ones.
Run FDISK to define a DOS partition. Set the DOS partition as the active
one.
Now run FORMAT to soft-format the DOS partition. Off you go!
Hope this helps.
--
Bob Eager (Captain Nemo)
rde@ukc.UUCP
...!mcvax!ukc!rde
Phone: +44 227 764000 ext 7589ast@cs.vu.nl (Andy Tanenbaum) (06/24/87)
In article <3123@eagle.ukc.ac.uk> rde@ukc.ac.uk (R.D.Eager) writes: >One thing I noticed while reading through the MINIX sources is that the >DISKFIX program probably doesn't work right on DOS 3.x hard disks. DISKFIX has been a constant source of problems. If somebody who understands how partitions work would write a little C program that runs on MINIX and allows the user to create and delete partitions of whatever type he wants that would be very useful. The program probably would only be a couple of pages, but requires some understanding of how the partition table is laid out. Andy Tanenbaum