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From: paradis@encore.UUCP (Jim Paradis)
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
Subject: Re: Formatting Floppies - HELP!!
Message-ID: <1915@encore.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 8-Sep-87 09:58:50 EDT
Article-I.D.: encore.1915
Posted: Tue Sep  8 09:58:50 1987
Date-Received: Wed, 9-Sep-87 06:53:25 EDT
References: <1987Sep7.134426.5166@gpu.utcs.toronto.edu>
Reply-To: paradis@encore.UUCP (Jim Paradis)
Organization: Encore Computer Corp., Marlboro, MA
Lines: 39

In article <1987Sep7.134426.5166@gpu.utcs.toronto.edu> kurfurst@gpu.utcs.toronto.edu (Tom Kurfurst) writes:
>Following a dosread or doswrite on a formatted DOS diskette ( I have
>version 2.10) it would appear that track 0 is destroyed and so     
>impossible to reformat with format.com.

What kind of PC are you using?  I found the same problem with my 12-MHz
AT clone, but it has nothing to do with whether track 0 is destroyed or
not.  All that message means is that it failed on the first track.

>Has anyone else had this problem? Could it be that my format.com is
>broken.

Well, format.com is "broken" in that it can't deal with very fast machines.
Apparently it uses some hard-coded countdown loop which works fine on
XTs, turbo XTs, and ATs, but fails on turbo ATs.

>In view of all this and while on the subject I would greatly appreciate:
>
>	1. Source code to the equivalent of format.com which does not
>	   use BIOS calls.
>	2. Technical specs so that I may write (1).
>	3. Failing request (1) a copy of format.com as I think that
>	   mine may be broken.

Actually, I've been meaning to add formatting capabilities to the MINIX
floppy driver for some time now... this just might be the incentive I
need to do it.  It's actually not that hard to do at all... for the
controller that MINIX supports, formatting is very similar to a write
operation... all one has to do is clone off some of the write code and
modify it appropriately.  I'll see if I can do that this week (I see it
as about a one-evening project).  If I can't, I'll post the details I
know and some other enterprising soul can do it...

   +----------------+  Jim Paradis                  linus--+
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You don't honestly think ENCORE is responsible for this??!!