Path: utzoo!censor!geac!torsqnt!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!dsuvax!ghelmer
From: ghelmer@dsuvax.uucp (Guy Helmer)
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
Subject: Re: Does Minix eat floppy disk drives?
Message-ID: <1991Jan4.230711.25240@dsuvax.uucp>
Date: 4 Jan 91 23:07:11 GMT
References: <1806@sun13.scri.fsu.edu>
Organization: Dakota State University
Lines: 34

In <1806@sun13.scri.fsu.edu> nall@sun8.scri.fsu.edu (John Nall) writes:

>I wrote in an earlier message (paraphrased):
>>  ...for the third time, I have lost a 1.2MB floppy disk drive
>>  on my Minix system.  On the other hand, I have never lost one
>>  on my MS-DOS system.
>>
>>  so...I think...MINIX EATS FLOPPY DISK DRIVES.

>                                      Even though logic tells me
>that Minix can't possibly eat disk drives, hearing those grinding
>noises while it is figuring out what sort of drive it is always
>gives me the creeps.

I don't know if I would say that MINIX doesn't eat disk drives.
I think my 1.2M at work was damaged some by booting MINIX
with 360K disks.  I don't like the check for a 720K disk,
which will bang the heads 24 times in succession if you are booting from a
360K disk.  (Bootblok tries to seek out to track 64 in an attempt
to find out if you've got a 720K boot disk)

BTW, I'm going to clean up my bootblok.s that shouldn't be so hard on
disk drives and post it tonight.  It will include support for 1.44M
boot disks and fix a bad thing regarding 720K boot disks.

>--
>John W. Nall		| Supercomputer Computations Research Institute
>nall@sun8.scri.fsu.edu  | Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL 32306
>   WB4LOQ (why? I dunno....everyone else seems to be doing it.  _._)
-- 
Guy Helmer                           helmer@sdnet.bitnet, uunet!dsuvax!ghelmer
work: DSU Computing Services, Business & Education Institute    (605) 256-5315
play: MidIX System Support Services                             (605) 256-2788
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