Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!wuarchive!mit-eddie!uw-beaver!rice!eunomia.rice.edu!bro From: bro@eunomia.rice.edu (Douglas Monk) Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st Subject: Re: SPARCstation floppy drive (again) Summary: DUP_FAT problem, and disk serial number problem Message-ID: <1990Oct9.233652.3503@rice.edu> Date: 9 Oct 90 23:36:52 GMT References: <14582@mentor.cc.purdue.edu> Sender: news@rice.edu (News) Organization: Rice University, Houston Lines: 31 In article ralph@laas.fr writes: >I have absolutely no problem in formating/reading/writing PC and ST >compatible floppies, using the mtools package which was posted to the >net (comp.sources.sun, I believe). I had to add another patch in >order to make the floppies readable under Gulam; Gulam does not seem >to like an all-blanks volume label. There are three possible problems some people may encounter: 1) Minor problem: To compile, I had to change the source to rename a type to "union __wait" in the function formatit in file "mkdfs.c": some include file dependency no doubt. 2) MAJOR PROBLEM: as distributed, init.o *must* be compiled with DUP_FAT defined. (I believe your patch fixes that, but I can't read patch myself :-). I made DUP_FAT the default in my version: My Atari needed the second FAT to read disks correctly. Why leave some machines out? 3) Medium problem? : Just like MSDOS machines, these programs don't write a disk serial number like Ataris want. Your problem with Gulam may be related to that somehow: no serial number, and Ataris get confused as to when they need to re-read the disk FAT: all disks look alike. (But the volume label is a file, not in the boot sector banner where the serial number goes, so I am not sure this is your problem. I'll try gulam tonight to see if my version works OK.) Hitting rereads disks in which I have written serial numbers, so I think it is OK - I didn't have real good docs when I wrote this patch. Doug Monk (bro@rice.edu) Disclaimer: These views are mine, not necessarily my organization's.