more space on floppy

[David Solan]

You can fit at least 412,670 bytes on a single floppy using the UNIX
PC.  You just have to initialize your diskettes to have 42 tracks and
10 sectors per track.  To do this, first create a file,
/usr/lib/iv/FD1042, whose contents is:

type		FD
name		Floppy
cylinders	42
heads		2
sectors		10
steprate	0
singledensity
$
$
$
0
1
$
$

Next, issue the following commands:

iv -ivw /dev/rfp020 /usr/lib/iv/FD1042
mkfs /dev/fp021 830:96	#making a file system with 96 inodes

	You don't have to enter the "830:96" explicitly (you really
don't even have to do the mkfs at all, if you are using the floppy
for cpio or some-such purpose exclusively).  If you use 43 tracks,
this will work too, giving you still more space on the floppy, but
then the head mechanism will every now and then bang into the stop
near the hub, probably ultimately destroying your floppy drive.
This is definitely NOT recommended!  Strangely, the above
initialization procedure does put error messages out to
/usr/adm/unix.log.  But these do not seem to indicate a problem.



-- 
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                                                {codas,u1100a}-----\
David Solan                            rutgers!rochester!pcid!kodak!gizzmo!mark
                                          {lazlo,ethos,fthood}-----/