[comp.unix.admin] UNIX filesystems on Sun SPARCstation floppy disks

karl@quercus.gsfc.nasa.gov (Karl Anderson) (04/19/91)

I know this has been discussed, but I missed it.  What I want to know
is, can 3-1/2" floppy disks with UNIX filesystems on them be mounted,
and if so, how?  I did fdformat /dev/rfd0c, then newfs /dev/fd0c, but 
"mount /dev/fd0c /fd" returns

mount: /dev/fd0c on /fd: Invalid argument
mount: giving up on:
   /fd

Respond by email and I'll summarize.  TIA.

Karl
--
Karl A. Anderson		| Internet: karl@forest.gsfc.nasa.gov
NASA/GSFC code 923 (STX)	| voice: (301) 286-3815
Greenbelt, MD 20771		| #include "std_disclaimer"

peter@ficc.ferranti.com (Peter da Silva) (04/23/91)

In article <1991Apr18.174329@quercus.gsfc.nasa.gov> karl@quercus.gsfc.nasa.gov (Karl Anderson) writes:
> I know this has been discussed, but I missed it.  What I want to know
> is, can 3-1/2" floppy disks with UNIX filesystems on them be mounted,

I'd like to know this, too. Information on how to format and mkfs them
would be nice as well... I didn't even get that far. We had a MOTIF
installation blow away /usr/lib, so blowing away the C runtime shared
library. The only things that worked were mount and fsck, so I was
goint to mount a floppy on top of /usr/lib so we could at least get
up far enough to fix things! No luck.

I have no problem with this sort of stuff on System V based systems,
but this SunOS/BSD stuff was like going back into the dark ages of
Version 7, back when none of these programs would figure the defaults
for you...
-- 
Peter da Silva.  `-_-'  peter@ferranti.com
+1 713 274 5180.  'U`  "Have you hugged your wolf today?"

karl@quercus.gsfc.nasa.gov (Karl Anderson) (04/24/91)

In article <1991Apr18.174329@quercus.gsfc.nasa.gov>
karl@quercus.gsfc.nasa.gov (that's me) writes:
|> I know this has been discussed, but I missed it.  What I want to
know
|> is, can 3-1/2" floppy disks with UNIX filesystems on them be
mounted,
|> 

Well, today I had *no* trouble doing just what I was unable to do last
week.  Here's what I did, using a name-brand high-density 3-1/2"
diskette:

root@tundra# fdformat fd0
Press return to start formatting floppy. 
........................................................................
.........
root@tundra# newfs /dev/rfd0c
/dev/rfd0c:	2880 sectors in 80 cylinders of 2 tracks, 18 sectors
	1.5MB in 5 cyl groups (16 c/g, 0.29MB/g, 128 i/g)
super-block backups (for fsck -b #) at:
 32, 640, 1184, 1792, 2336,
root@tundra# fsck /dev/rfd0c
** /dev/rfd0c
** Last Mounted on 
** Phase 1 - Check Blocks and Sizes
** Phase 2 - Check Pathnames
** Phase 3 - Check Connectivity
** Phase 4 - Check Reference Counts
** Phase 5 - Check Cyl groups
2 files, 9 used, 1254 free (14 frags, 155 blocks, 1.1% fragmentation)
root@tundra# mount /dev/fd0c /floppy
root@tundra# cd /floppy
root@tundra# ls
lost+found/

Huh!  Ever have a car that acted up, but not when you took it in to the
shop?
Thanks to everyone who responded, although no one had the solution.  How
could
they - it wasn't supposed to happen!
--
Karl A. Anderson		| Internet: karl@forest.gsfc.nasa.gov
NASA/GSFC code 923 (STX)	| voice: (301) 286-3815
Greenbelt, MD 20771		| #include "std_disclaimer"

prl@iis.ethz.ch (Peter Lamb) (04/24/91)

peter@ficc.ferranti.com (Peter da Silva) writes:

>In article <1991Apr18.174329@quercus.gsfc.nasa.gov> karl@quercus.gsfc.nasa.gov (Karl Anderson) writes:
>> I know this has been discussed, but I missed it.  What I want to know
>> is, can 3-1/2" floppy disks with UNIX filesystems on them be mounted,

Yes indeed. I have even been able to mount floppies made on a Sony NeWS
on my SS1+ (the U*nix file systems are generally not designed for
portability across architectures; you shouldn't expect this to always
work, but sometimes it does).

>I'd like to know this, too. Information on how to format and mkfs them
>would be nice as well...

<barossa> fdformat -l
Press return to start formatting floppy.
................................................................................
<barossa> /etc/newfs /dev/rfd0c
/dev/rfd0c:     1440 sectors in 80 cylinders of 2 tracks, 9 sectors
        0.7MB in 5 cyl groups (16 c/g, 0.15MB/g, 64 i/g)
super-block backups (for fsck -b #) at:
 32, 336, 608, 912, 1184,
<barossa> su
Password:
barossa[prl]# mount /dev/fd0c /mnt
barossa[prl]# ls -la /mnt
total 10
drwxr-xr-x  3 root          512 Apr 24 08:55 ./
drwxr-sr-x 11 root          512 Apr 24 08:34 ../
drwxr-xr-x  2 root         8192 Apr 24 08:55 lost+found/
barossa[prl]# umount /mnt
barossa[prl]# <barossa>

This is for a so-called 1MB floppy (720k after formatting) or DSDD.
For a `2MB' floppy (1440k after formatting) or DSHD, omit the -l option.

This leaves you with:
<barossa> df /dev/rfd0c
Filesystem            kbytes    used   avail capacity  Mounted on
/dev/rfd0c               583       9     515     2%

Since space is a premium on a floppy, you may want to add some mkfs options
to the newfs:

/etc/newfs -o space -m 0 /dev/rfd0c	# optimise disk layout for space, allow
					# use of whole disk
Filesystem            kbytes    used   avail capacity  Mounted on
/dev/rfd0c               583       9     574     2%

If you can live with a bot more of a performance drop, add

-t 10		(lie about the head arrangement; this makes the disk a
		 single cylinder group, and reduces overhead. For a DSHD
		 disk, use -t 20)

Filesystem            kbytes    used   avail capacity  Mounted on
/dev/rfd0c               647       9     638     1%

I normally use floppies for saving software source in compressed tar
files. This means that there aren't many files, and so I don't need
many inodes, so add:

-i 8192		(tell newfs you have a larger-than-average file size)

Filesystem            kbytes    used   avail capacity  Mounted on
/dev/rfd0c               671       9     662     1%


So, now you have 662 of the 720k available for use (with default parameters
515k).



The security of permitting random users to mount filesystems that they
can tweak themselves is not addressed here ;-)


--
Peter Lamb
uucp:  uunet!mcsun!ethz!prl	eunet: prl@iis.ethz.ch	Tel:   +411 256 5241
Integrated Systems Laboratory
ETH-Zentrum, 8092 Zurich

richard@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Richard Tobin) (04/24/91)

In article <1991Apr18.174329@quercus.gsfc.nasa.gov> karl@quercus.gsfc.nasa.gov (Karl Anderson) writes:
>I know this has been discussed, but I missed it.  What I want to know
>is, can 3-1/2" floppy disks with UNIX filesystems on them be mounted,
>and if so, how?

Works fine for me (I assume you meant "newfs /dev/rfd0c" otherwise it
says "newfs: /dev/fd0c: not a raw disk device".

I'm using SunOS 4.1, but it used to work under 4.0 too.

Here's exactly what I did:


  gairsay# fdformat /dev/rfd0c
  Press return to start formatting floppy.
  ................................................................................
  gairsay# newfs /dev/fd0c
  newfs: /dev/fd0c: not a raw disk device
  gairsay# newfs /dev/rfd0c
  /dev/rfd0c:     2880 sectors in 80 cylinders of 2 tracks, 18 sectors
          1.5MB in 5 cyl groups (16 c/g, 0.29MB/g, 128 i/g)
  super-block backups (for fsck -b #) at:
   32, 640, 1184, 1792, 2336,
  gairsay# mount /dev/fd0c /mnt
  gairsay# ls /mnt
  lost+found/
  gairsay#

By the way, I strongly advise you not to try paging from it :-)
  
-- Richard

-- 
Richard Tobin,                       JANET: R.Tobin@uk.ac.ed             
AI Applications Institute,           ARPA:  R.Tobin%uk.ac.ed@nsfnet-relay.ac.uk
Edinburgh University.                UUCP:  ...!ukc!ed.ac.uk!R.Tobin

karl@quercus.gsfc.nasa.gov (Karl Anderson) (04/25/91)

In article <1991Apr18.174329@quercus.gsfc.nasa.gov>
karl@quercus.gsfc.nasa.gov (that's me) writes:

|> I know this has been discussed, but I missed it.  What I want to
|> know is, can 3-1/2" floppy disks with UNIX filesystems on them be
|> mounted...

Today I learned that the original problem was probably due to using 
"brand-X" floppies.  Subsequent experiments tended to bear this out.

--
Karl A. Anderson		| Internet: karl@forest.gsfc.nasa.gov
NASA/GSFC code 923 (STX)	| voice: (301) 286-3815
Greenbelt, MD 20771		| #include "std_disclaimer"

ken@racerx.UUCP (Ken Hardy) (04/25/91)

In article <NSXA7K9@xds13.ferranti.com>, peter@ficc.ferranti.com (Peter da Silva) writes:
> In article <1991Apr18.174329@quercus.gsfc.nasa.gov> karl@quercus.gsfc.nasa.gov (Karl Anderson) writes:
> > is, can 3-1/2" floppy disks with UNIX filesystems on them be mounted,
> 
> I'd like to know this, too. Information on how to format and mkfs them
> would be nice as well... I didn't even get that far. We had a MOTIF

This is what I use on a SparcStation 1 with SunOS 4.0.3.  Works like
a champ:

        fdformat
        /etc/mkfs /dev/rfd0c 2880 18 2 8192 1024 16 10 5 2048 t 0 -1
        /etc/mount /dev/fd0c /floppy


"df /floppy" yields:

    Filesystem            kbytes    used   avail capacity  Mounted on
    /dev/fd0c               1303       9    1163     1%    /floppy

I just did this now on a new diskette, so I know it works (here, at least).
-- 

Ken Hardy                         uunet!racerx!ken
Bridge Information Systems        ken@racerx.com

peter@ficc.ferranti.com (Peter da Silva) (04/25/91)

Now wouldn't it be nice if fdformat was cross-referenced from format?
-- 
Peter da Silva.  `-_-'  peter@ferranti.com
+1 713 274 5180.  'U`  "Have you hugged your wolf today?"

phil@inetg1.ARCO.COM (Phil Meyer) (04/26/91)

In article <1991Apr23.155250@quercus.gsfc.nasa.gov>, karl@quercus.gsfc.nasa.gov
(Karl Anderson) writes:
> In article <1991Apr18.174329@quercus.gsfc.nasa.gov>
> karl@quercus.gsfc.nasa.gov (that's me) writes:
> |> I know this has been discussed, but I missed it.  What I want to
> know
> |> is, can 3-1/2" floppy disks with UNIX filesystems on them be
> mounted,
> |> 
> 
> Well, today I had *no* trouble doing just what I was unable to do last
> week.  Here's what I did, using a name-brand high-density 3-1/2"
> diskette:

Some 3-1/2" floppies have holes in BOTH corners.  You have to tape over the
other hole in order for the SUNOS tools to work.
'Once bitten...'
--- 
+=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-+
| Phil Meyer         phil@arco.com  Work:(214) 754-6805                      |
+=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-+

zjmw36@trc.amoco.com (Joe M. Wade) (05/01/91)

In article <1991Apr26.141911.17924@Arco.COM>, phil@inetg1.ARCO.COM (Phil Meyer) writes:
|> 
|> Some 3-1/2" floppies have holes in BOTH corners.  You have to tape over the
|> other hole in order for the SUNOS tools to work.
|> 'Once bitten...'
|> --- 
The second hole on some diskettes is to denote that is is high density. If
SUNOS tools only works for low density as you imply, you could probably 
force low density fomatting on a high density diskette. Better yet, just 
use a low density diskette.
-- 
*  Joe M. Wade (jwade@trc.amoco.com)         (918) 660-4387    *
*  Amoco Research Center * 4502 E. 41st St. * Tulsa, OK  74102 *

*  Just because I don't care doesn't mean I don't understand.  *

dpassage@cyclone.Berkeley.EDU (David G. Paschich) (05/07/91)

In article <1991Apr30.213800.18265@trc.amoco.com> zjmw36@trc.amoco.com (Joe M. Wade) writes:
>In article <1991Apr26.141911.17924@Arco.COM>, phil@inetg1.ARCO.COM (Phil Meyer) writes:
>|> Some 3-1/2" floppies have holes in BOTH corners.  You have to tape over the
>|> other hole in order for the SUNOS tools to work.
>|> 'Once bitten...'
>The second hole on some diskettes is to denote that is is high density. If
>SUNOS tools only works for low density as you imply, you could probably 
>force low density fomatting on a high density diskette. Better yet, just 
>use a low density diskette.

As a matter of fact, formatting high density 3.5" disks as low density is in
general a bad idea.  High-density disks use a different magnetic medium with
a lower signal level than low-density disks.  It'll probably format, but it
won't be reliable.  Certainly don't put anything important on it.

David G. Paschich    Open Computing Facility    UC Berkeley
dpassage@ocf.berkeley.edu    
"Everybody wants prosthetic foreheads on their real heads."
					--They Might Be Giants

chap@art-sy.detroit.mi.us (j chapman flack) (05/13/91)

In article <1991Apr30.213800.18265@trc.amoco.com>,
zjmw36@trc.amoco.com (Joe M. Wade) writes:

>The second hole on some diskettes is to denote that is is high density. If
>SUNOS tools only works for low density as you imply, you could probably 
>force low density fomatting on a high density diskette. Better yet, just 
>use a low density diskette.

I'm not sure about 3 1/2" diskettes, but with 5 1/4" diskettes, you *can't*
force low-density formatting on a high-density diskette.  The high-density
coating requires a higher write current to magnetize it; the drive selects
the write current based on what format you've selected, so when you select
low density it's using barely enough current to make any mark on the disk.

I always thought it was crazy that you couldn't put a LOW density format on
a HIGH density diskette, until I learned that....
-- 
Chap Flack                         Their tanks will rust.  Our songs will last.
chap@art-sy.detroit.mi.us                                    -MIKHS 0EODWPAKHS

Nothing I say represents Appropriate Roles for Technology unless I say it does.

Gord_Wait@mindlink.bc.ca (Gord Wait) (05/14/91)

I am more than certain that the floppy disk material is a homogenous material,
and that tracks and track space are ONLY an arbitrary result fo formatting the
disk. The manufacturers don't build in the tracks.
gord wait
--
Gord Wait
Member of Technical Staff
ASIC Engineering
SMOS Systems
Vancouver Design Center
Gord_Wait@mindlink.UUCP

jstewart@rodan.acs.syr.edu (Ace Stewart) (05/14/91)

In article <1991Apr30.213800.18265@trc.amoco.com> zjmw36@trc.amoco.com (Joe M. Wade) writes:
>
>The second hole on some diskettes is to denote that is is high density. If
>SUNOS tools only works for low density as you imply, you could probably 
>force low density fomatting on a high density diskette.

Nope, you can do it...but you will regret it.

>Better yet, just use a low density diskette.

Yup, much better idea. Why? Bascically, the tracks on a disk are
designed with distance between them that denotes what "size" of disk
they are. Formatting an HD as a DD (on a CPU) will cause problems with
the track space. 

Sure, there are war stories saying "Well, I've had no problems" but
please understand that 3M, Sony, and the like warn people not to do
this since it then becomes a volatile storage medium.

My $0.02 worth..

--Ace
-- 
    Ace Stewart | Affiliation: Eastman Kodak Company, Rochester, New York
jstewart@rodan.acs.syr.edu jstewart@sunrise.bitnet jstewart@mothra.cns.syr.edu
   jstewart@sunspot.cns.syr.edu     ace@suvm.bitnet     rsjns@suvm.bitnet