Date: Tue, 22 Jul 2008 12:40:39 -0400
From: Wakko Warner <wakko@animx.eu.org>
To: Gene Heskett <gene.heskett@gmail.com>
Cc: Linux Kernel Mailing List <linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org>
Subject: Re: Floppy access by dd fails for 2.6.26-rc2 to final, possibly even earlier
Message-ID: <20080722164039.GA18079@animx.eu.org>
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Gene Heskett wrote:
> I just been advised by private email that I an not the only one who has lost the 
> use of his floppy drive via dd.  The corresponder noted that he had a copy of 
> DSL with a 2.4.something kernel, and his drive worked flawlessly while booted 
> to DSL.
> 
> So now there are at least 2 floppy users wandering in the wilderness looking for 
> water.  We need it to support 20 year old computers without a TCP stack or 
> network cards.

I guess I'll chime in.  I'm not sure this is the same problem or not, but my
Alpha AS1000a (EV56 5/400) has never successfully been able to read the
floppy.  I always get garbage.  The drive does work as I can use the RCU
from floppy from the Arc BIOS.

Linux sees this device as a 2.88mb floppy.  It is a 1.44mb and the
information in the Arc BIOS is set to 1.44mb (I don't think it matters, I
boot from SRM, not sure how to set the floppy there)

I also do not see any errors or other useful messages in the logs.

Jun  1 15:23:06 narf kernel: [4262383.309846] Floppy drive(s): fd0 is 2.88M
Jun  1 15:23:06 narf kernel: [4262383.324494] FDC 0 is a National Semiconductor PC87306

I tried forcing to use a specific type:
Jun  1 16:21:38 narf kernel: [4194206.301784] floppy0: setting CMOS code to 4
Jun  1 16:21:38 narf kernel: [4194206.301784] Floppy drive(s): fd0 is 1.44M
Jun  1 16:21:38 narf kernel: [4194206.314479] FDC 0 is a National Semiconductor PC87306

But that failed even worse with errors on sector 0.  (NOTE the floppy was
good)

-- 
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 Got Gas???
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