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1 perry 1 FD
2 !!!FD
3 NAME
4 CONFIGURATION
5 DESCRIPTION
6 NOTES
7 FILES
8 AUTHORS
9 SEE ALSO
10 ----
11 !!NAME
12
13
14 fd - floppy disk device
15 !!CONFIGURATION
16
17
18 Floppy drives are block devices with major number 2.
19 Typically they are owned by root.floppy and have either mode
20 0660 (access checking via group membership) or mode 0666
21 (everybody has access). For the following devices, ''n''
22 is the drive number. It is 0 for the first drive, 1 for the
23 second etc. To get a minor number for a specific drive
24 connected to the first controller, add ''n'' to the minor
25 base number. If it is connected to the second controller,
26 add ''n''+128 to the minor base number. __Warning: If
27 you use formats with more tracks than supported by your
28 drive, you may damage it mechanically.__ Trying once if
29 more tracks than the usual 40/80 are supported should not
30 damage it, but no warranty is given for that. Don't create
31 device entries for those formats to prevent their usage if
32 you are not sure.
33
34
35 Drive independent device files which automatically detect
36 the media format and capacity:
37
38
39 5.25 inch double density device files:
40
41
42 5.25 inch high density device files:
43
44
45 3.5 inch double density device files:
46
47
48 3.5 inch high density device files:
49
50
51 3.5 inch extra density device files:
52 !!DESCRIPTION
53
54
55 __fd__ special files access the floppy disk drives in raw mode. The following ioctl(2) calls are supported by __fd__ devices:
56
57
58 __FDCLRPRM__
59
60
61 clears the media information of a drive (geometry of disk in
62 drive).
63
64
65 __FDSETPRM__
66
67
68 sets the media information of a drive. The media information
69 will be lost when the media is changed.
70
71
72 __FDDEFPRM__
73
74
75 sets the media information of a drive (geometry of disk in
76 drive). The media information will not be lost when the
77 media is changed. This will disable autodetection. In order
78 to re-enable autodetection, you have to issue an
79 __FDCLRPRM__ .
80
81
82 __FDGETDRVTYP__
83
84
85 returns the type of a drive (name parameter). For formats
86 which work in several drive types, __FDGETDRVTYP__
87 returns a name which is appropriate for the oldest drive
88 type which supports this format.
89
90
91 __FDFLUSH__
92
93
94 invalidates the buffer cache for the given
95 drive.
96
97
98 __FDSETMAXERRS__
99
100
101 sets the error thresholds for reporting errors, aborting the
102 operation, recalibrating, resetting, and reading sector by
103 sector.
104
105
106 __FDSETMAXERRS__
107
108
109 gets the current error thresholds.
110
111
112 __FDGETDRVTYP__
113
114
115 gets the internal name of the drive.
116
117
118 __FDWERRORCLR__
119
120
121 clears the write error statistics.
122
123
124 __FDWERRORGET__
125
126
127 reads the write error statistics. These include the total
128 number of write errors, the location and disk of the first
129 write error, and the location and disk of the last write
130 error. Disks are identified by a generation number which is
131 incremented at (almost) each disk change.
132
133
134 __FDTWADDLE__
135
136
137 Switch the drive motor off for a few microseconds. This
138 might be needed in order to access a disk whose sectors are
139 too close together.
140
141
142 __FDSETDRVPRM__
143
144
145 sets various drive parameters.
146
147
148 __FDGETDRVPRM__
149
150
151 reads these parameters back.
152
153
154 __FDGETDRVSTAT__
155
156
157 gets the cached drive state (disk changed, write protected
158 et al.)
159
160
161 __FDPOLLDRVSTAT__
162
163
164 polls the drive and return its state.
165
166
167 __FDGETFDCSTAT__
168
169
170 gets the floppy controller state.
171
172
173 __FDRESET__
174
175
176 resets the floppy controller under certain
177 conditions.
178
179
180 __FDRAWCMD__
181
182
183 sends a raw command to the floppy controller.
184
185
186 For more precise information, consult also the
187 !!NOTES
188
189
190 The various formats allow to read and write many types of
191 disks. However, if a floppy is formatted with a too small
192 inter sector gap, performance may drop, up to needing a few
193 seconds to access an entire track. To prevent this, use
194 interleaved formats. It is not possible to read floppies
195 which are formatted using GCR (group code recording), which
196 is used by Apple II and Macintosh computers (800k disks).
197 Reading floppies which are hard sectored (one hole per
198 sector, with the index hole being a little skewed) is not
199 supported. This used to be common with older 8 inch
200 floppies.
201 !!FILES
202
203
204 /dev/fd*
205 !!AUTHORS
206
207
208 Alain Knaff (Alain@linux.lu), David Niemi (niemidc@tux.org),
209 Bill Broadhurst (bbroad@netcom.com).
210 !!SEE ALSO
211
212
213 floppycontrol(1), mknod(1), chown(1),
214 getfdprm(1), superformat(1), mount(8),
215 setfdprm(1)
216 ----
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