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Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd Path: sserve!manuel.anu.edu.au!munnari.oz.au!network.ucsd.edu!usc!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!news.columbia.edu!cucbs.chem.columbia.edu!cucbs.chem.columbia.edu!russo From: russo@cucbs.chem.columbia.edu (Thomas Russo) Subject: [386BSD] Disklabeling a DOS formatted floppy Message-ID: <RUSSO.92Nov22145945@cucbs.chem.columbia.edu> Sender: russo@cucbs.chem.columbia.edu (Thomas Russo) Organization: Center for Biomolecular Simulation, Department of Chemistry, Columbia University Date: Sun, 22 Nov 1992 19:59:45 GMT Lines: 55 No, I don't want to know how to low-level format a floppy -- I know I need to do that from DOS. What I WANT to do now is to make a filesystem on a floppy (either 5.25 or 3.5in), just like the dist.fs and fixit.fs floppies have filesystems, but for the life of me I can't figure out how to do it. This is what I've tried (some of them based on things I remember reading here on how to make bootable floppies, which isn't what I really want to do but hey, I just want to be able to mount a freaking floppy!): DOS format a: (that's the 5.25, or b:, the 3.5) 386BSD: 1) newfs /dev/fd0a or 2) disklabel -w fd0a floppy5 or 3) disklabel fd0a > junk -- this once gave me a skeletal disklabel in junk, but only once. disklabel -R fd0a junk /usr/mdec/fdboot /usr/mdec/bootfd or 4) cat /usr/mdec/fdboot /usr/mdec/bootfd > /dev/rfd0a But none of these things do ANYTHING other than give me an error of the sort "ioctl: TIOCFOOBARBLETCH: device not configured", or "can't read disk label" I'm confused. I have tried this using DOS formatted diskettes and unformatted diskettes (even though I knew that wasn't supposed to work), and I cannot get the damned thing labeled, much less newfs it. What precise steps do I need to take to get a floppy disk to have a bsd filesystem on it? On another front, I seem to recall someone saying something about how to get mdir to stop saying "file not found" and to produce a real directory of the dos floppy, but I didn't save it. Could someone tell me why mdir (and mformat) is doing this and what I have to do to stop it. -- Thomas Russo russo@nile.chem.columbia.edu Department of Chemistry and Center for Biomolecular Simulation Columbia University