screwy format message

[Derek E. Terveer]

In article <8249 at saturn.ucsc.edu>, lcc at ucscb.UCSC.EDU (73701000) writes:
> In article <1003 at hawkmoon.MN.ORG> I write:
> >Whenever i try to format my (new) 3.5" floppy (1.44M) with a 720K diskette in
> >it i get the following message:
> >
> >$ format /dev/rdsk/f13dt	#lo density device name;  f13ht = hi density
> >formatting.
> >Formatted 0 tracks: 0 thru 4294967295, interleave 1.
> >
> >What does this mean?  Is my format broken and is there a newer one out there
> >that i can get that will work better?
> >
>
> I put a newer format on the bbs in mid February but I don't think that it is
> going to resolve that problem. Format works by doing an ioctl on the 
> device that was opened to get the geometry info. There is a coding scheme
> built into the minor device number of the file (device node) that was opened
> and in it contains info such as hi/low density, etc. My guess is that you've
> got some way bogus minor device number for f13ht or a corrupted binary.

Ok -- that begs the question: "what are the correct minor device numbers for
3.5" floppies?"  This is what i currently have:

$ ls -li /dev/rdsk/f1*
  444 crw-rw-rw-   4 root     sys        1, 97 Jul  5 15:30 /dev/rdsk/f1
  446 crw-rw-rw-   3 root     sys        1,113 Jun 28 01:50 /dev/rdsk/f13dt
  444 crw-rw-rw-   4 root     sys        1, 97 Jul  5 15:30 /dev/rdsk/f13ht
  434 crw-rw-rw-   2 root     sys        1, 21 Jul 18  1988 /dev/rdsk/f15d9
  436 crw-rw-rw-   6 root     sys        1, 17 Jul 18  1988 /dev/rdsk/f15d9t
  430 crw-rw-rw-   3 root     sys        1,  5 Jul 18  1988 /dev/rdsk/f15h
  432 crw-rw-rw-   4 root     sys        1,  1 Jun 24 17:43 /dev/rdsk/f15ht
  442 crw-rw-rw-   1 root     sys        1, 81 Jul 18  1988 /dev/rdsk/f15l8t
  440 crw-rw-rw-   1 root     sys        1, 65 Jun 24 19:21 /dev/rdsk/f15l9t
  438 crw-rw-rw-   2 root     sys        1, 49 Jun 24 17:43 /dev/rdsk/f15qt
  434 crw-rw-rw-   2 root     sys        1, 21 Jul 18  1988 /dev/rdsk/f1d9d
  436 crw-rw-rw-   6 root     sys        1, 17 Jul 18  1988 /dev/rdsk/f1d9dt
  444 crw-rw-rw-   4 root     sys        1, 97 Jul  5 15:30 /dev/rdsk/f1hi
  446 crw-rw-rw-   3 root     sys        1,113 Jun 28 01:50 /dev/rdsk/f1lo
  430 crw-rw-rw-   3 root     sys        1,  5 Jul 18  1988 /dev/rdsk/f1q15d
  432 crw-rw-rw-   4 root     sys        1,  1 Jun 24 17:43 /dev/rdsk/f1q15dt
  438 crw-rw-rw-   2 root     sys        1, 49 Jun 24 17:43 /dev/rdsk/f1q9dt

Also, what do each of the bits in the minor device numbers mean?  There doesn't
seem to be any documentation for these things.  I have sort of made some
guesses but, these guesses are probably wrong.  When i *do* format a 3.5" disk,
it reports that 80 (0..79) tracks have been formatted; the same as for 5.25"
disks, so it must not have the correct minor device number.

Here is the 32 bit crc for the format i'm using:

$ brik -Gb /bin/format
# Whole file CRCs generated by Brik v1.0.  Use "brik -C" to verify them.

# CRC-32        filename
# ------        --------

2127766125b     /bin/format


derek
-- 
Derek Terveer 	    det at hawkmoon.MN.ORG || ..!uunet!rosevax!elric!hawkmoon!det
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