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Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!samsung!emory!stiatl!slammer!brad
From: brad@slammer.UUCP (Brad Isley)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.att,unix-pc.general
Subject: Re: floppy-sync-buffers
Keywords: floppy read/write buffers sync
Message-ID: <582@slammer.UUCP>
Date: 14 Jun 90 21:33:59 GMT
References: <4074@tahoe.unr.edu>
Reply-To: brad@slammer.UUCP (Brad Isley)
Distribution: na
Organization: Just me and my computers.  Norcross, Ga.
Lines: 36

In article <4074@tahoe.unr.edu> clint@wheeler (Clinton Case) writes:
>How do you asure that floppy disks are synchronized with their
>buffers (i.e. that the buffers get flushed) before removing the
>disks?

[various problems with floppies deleted...]

dismount -f takes care of this for you, however...

I have found that, sometimes, I can never successfully write to ANY floppy.
Sometimes I have to reformat and re-mkfs to get it to work.  Sometimes I have
to reboot my machine before it will work.

I archive several newsgroups to 3.5" floppies and ALWAYS do the following...

cp xxx /mnt
dismount -f
fsck /dev/rfp021

When I'm having problems the fsck will ALWAYS report:

Partially allocated inode:33
Clear?

Then it'll say

Partially allocated inode:34
Clear?

If I do not run fsck the symptoms are the same as you report.  Partial files.
The only solution I have found is to reboot. :-(  I'm running 3.51m.

fp021 is the block device.  Must read/write an entire block.
rfp021 is the raw device.  Can read/write across block boundaries.
-- 
brad@slammer.UUCP   (Brad Isley)