Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!njin!princeton!njsmu!mccc!pjh
From: pjh@mccc.UUCP (Pete Holsberg)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.microport
Subject: Re: Backups of Distibution Floppies
Message-ID: <757@mccc.UUCP>
Date: 22 May 89 16:29:23 GMT
References: <752@mccc.UUCP> <241@vector.Dallas.TX.US>
Reply-To: pjh@mccc.UUCP (Pete Holsberg)
Distribution: usa
Organization: The College On The Other Side of U. S. Route 1
Lines: 41

In article <241@vector.Dallas.TX.US> chip@vector.Dallas.TX.US (Chip Rosenthal) writes:
=In article <752@mccc.UUCP> pjh@mccc.UUCP (Pete Holsberg) writes:
=>... or are they *NIX-formatted disks?  
=
=There is no such thing as a "unix-formatted" disk.

Then why does *NIX have a command called "format" (or whatever)?

=You have to realize that there are two levels of formatting for magnetic
=media:  physical formatting and logical formatting.  

I do, I do!

=When you do a "format", whether it be under DOS, XENIX, Microport or
=whatever, you are putting down the physical format.  The DOS FORMAT command
=then goes on to put other goo on the disk, like boot and fat blocks[2].
=Under unix, this is broken out in a seperate step called "mkfs".

Oh, so there is no such thing as a *nix-formatted disk -- there are (at least)
three kinds of *nix-formatted disk, right?

=If you've got a utility which just copies the raw data on the disk, then
=it matters not what the logical format is, just that the physical format
=be understood.  Under DOS you've got DISKCOPY.  Under unix, there's dd.

So then, DISKCOPY only cares that the source floppy and destination floppy
both have 80 tracks laid out at 96 tracks per inch, and that the recording
density is "high", with 15 sectors per track, right?

I also have some floppies marked "96 tpi, 80 tracks, single sided, double
density" and others marked "single sided quad density".  Where do they fit
into the spectrum of PC-type diskettes?

(Incidentally, I tried mailing to you several times but it always bounced.)

Thanks for the help.
Pete

-- 
Pete Holsberg, Mercer County Community College, Trenton, NJ 08690  
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