[comp.os.os2.misc] HPFS on a Floppy - Totally Impossible ???

s142029@betty.ucdavis.edu (06/07/91)

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Article: 1740 of comp.os.os2.misc
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From: wbonner@yoda.eecs.wsu.edu (Wim Bonner)
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.misc
Subject: Re: HPFS on a Floppy ?
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Date: 6 Jun 91 18:31:31 GMT
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In article <13201@aggie.ucdavis.edu> s142029@fred.ucdavis.edu writes:
> >
> >    I am just wandering, since I haven't read the manual, but is it possible
> >to format a floppy with HPFS on it ?  I have tried
> 
> It is not possible,.  I think That they wanted to keep the Floppies Standard
> so that you didn't think that the disks are blank and re-format them when
> you are running DOS.  It probably also has something to do with the buffering 
> system for HPFS that makes it work well, and the number of buffers used woud
> basicly make it read the entore floppy when you first put the disk in and read 
> it.   Then you get the fun of dealing with systems that don't properly do the
> disk change lead thing.
> 
> Wim
> -- 
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> 

     Do you mean absolutely impossible.  I was thinking about trying to fool
FORMAT.COM into thinking the floppy drive is another fixed disk.  I don't know
much about HPFS file structure organization, so clarify it for me.  I was
hoping to patch FORMAT.COM or getting OS/2 to think that the floppy drive is
a fixed disk with 2 heads, 80 cylinders, 9 sectors per track.  How about that ?
Anyone know about this ?  Larry (IBM) ? ...

T. Huynh

PS : What was that IBM toll-free number for complaints and concerns again ?  I
missed it ?

U39648@uicvm.uic.edu (Darius Vaskelis) (06/07/91)

>     Do you mean absolutely impossible.  I was thinking about trying to fool
>FORMAT.COM into thinking the floppy drive is another fixed disk.  I don't know
>much about HPFS file structure organization, so clarify it for me.  I was
>hoping to patch FORMAT.COM or getting OS/2 to think that the floppy drive is
>a fixed disk with 2 heads, 80 cylinders, 9 sectors per track.  How about that
>?

Nope.  Last I checked, I think the minimum size for an HPFS partition was
14M.  Bummer, eh?

And might I add, HPFS on a floppy would suck, bigtime, in terms of
performance.  FAT was designed for floppies, and HPFS is designed for
hard disks.  Imagine your floppy files being shuffled around to keep
them contiguous while you tried to work... you might accidently remove
the floppy while it's being played with.

More interesting, I want to hear about the rumor that the newer and
improved FAT file system that IBM has designed for the commercial
release of OS/2 2.0 is FASTER than HPFS in some circumstances!  Any
truth to this, people-in-the-know?

- Darius
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cs_b144@ux.kingston.ac.uk (Ian Stickland) (06/10/91)

Why do you want HPFS on a floppy anyway ?? I was under the impression that HPFS
only gave significant performance gains on large drives anyway. Apart from the
long filenames which get preserved when you transfer to another HPFS
partition, I don't see the point. Also, how can you buffer a floppy when there
is no guarantee that a) it will be the same floppy next time you use the drive
and b) the write cache might try flushing it's buffers after you've removed it.

              Ian Stickland.

yee@aix01.aix.rpi.edu (Crimson Avenger) (06/17/91)

>> It is not possible,.  I think That they wanted to keep the Floppies Standard
>> so that you didn't think that the disks are blank and re-format them when
>> you are running DOS.  It probably also has something to do with the buffering 
>> system for HPFS that makes it work well, and the number of buffers used woud
>> basicly make it read the entore floppy when you first put the disk in and read 
>> it.   Then you get the fun of dealing with systems that don't properly do the
>> disk change lead thing.
>> 

Someone wrote that, sorry, I didn't get the author's name.  That talk about
worrying about formating HPFS and DOS thinks they are blank diskette is *SILLY*.
The problem is that IBM/MS-DOS doesn't recognized HPFS format.  It's JUST a 
simple matter of putting the recognition of the HPFS format on MD-DOS, (
maybe MS-DOS 5.01) and then the files can be seen.    Someone at Microsoft/IBM
can just insert a routine to say  if diskette can't be read, then check 
for HPFS.  IF not HPFS then disk format unknown.  

Disk buffering is just reading consecutive number of tracks into memory 
(memory buffer) and hope that the next read will come from memory instead of
going to the track.  It has no bearing on HPFS.  

There should be no reason, technically that I see for not having HPFS floppies.


-- 
-- Robert aka Crimson Avenger      (yee@rpi.edu or crimson_avenger@mts.rpi.edu)
   Once a hacker, always a hacker. (usere3jp@rpitsmts.bitnet)

taj@cunyvms1.gc.cuny.edu (06/20/91)

1-800-ps2-2227
Good luck with "live" recorded messages, you'll need it !