topic Re: Using a floppy in Operating System - HP-UX

Using a floppy

Wojciech Komornicki — Tue, 22 Nov 2005 16:34:32 GMT

I am trying to use a floppy on an old HP750 running HPUX. I have installed a Teac 3.5" SCSI floppy which is recognized by the system. The needed character and block device files have been created by the system. When I try reading a floppy with the command
>>>>>> dosls /dev/rfloppy/c0t0d0:
I get the error message
>>>>>> Unrecognized disc format on /dev/rfloppy/c0t0d0

I have tried using both high density and low density disks.

Any suggestions as to what to try next?

Re: Using a floppy

A. Clay Stephenson — Tue, 22 Nov 2005 16:40:55 GMT

Have you actually formatted these diskettes on a Windoes box first?

Re: Using a floppy

A. Clay Stephenson — Tue, 22 Nov 2005 16:41:11 GMT

Have you actually formatted these diskettes on a Windows box first?

Re: Using a floppy

Wojciech Komornicki — Tue, 22 Nov 2005 17:35:08 GMT

Yes. Both the low density disk and the high density disks were formatted and are readable on Windows. Both are also readable on an HP712 which I also have.

Re: Using a floppy

Andrew Rutter — Wed, 23 Nov 2005 03:52:50 GMT

hi,

I think you could have a faulty floppy drive.

try a new floppy disk and then try and initialize it in sam. If this works then theres nothing wrong with the drive and its probably the disks incompatible.

Also what OS is it running? if its 10.20 or before there was patches for the scsi floppies, but probbaly not available now.

It would also be worth checking that the floppy drivers are all properly configured in the kernel, and in the in state, through sam.

Andy

Re: Using a floppy

Stephen Keane — Fri, 25 Nov 2005 05:56:48 GMT

Are you sure it's /dev/rfloppy/c0t0d0 and not /dev/rfloppy/c0t1d0 ?

Also try (both with and without the floppy disk inserted)

# diskinfo /dev/rfloppy/c0t?d0

Substituting the correct value for '?'

Re: Using a floppy

Wojciech Komornicki — Fri, 25 Nov 2005 09:40:26 GMT

I was also surprised that the device file is c0t0d0. I renamed it so that it did not look like a device file but on reboot the device file was recreated.

I will post a more detailed response on Monday when I get back from the Holidays.

Re: Using a floppy

Andrew Rutter — Fri, 25 Nov 2005 11:46:55 GMT

hi,

It depends upon the jumper settings for drive to determine the scsi address.
there was 2 different versions of the teac scsi drives and they had different jumper settings for term power and other bits.

maybe worth having a look at the service manual for the older workstations as they had the jumper settings needed for the floppies in them.
what is the part number on the flopy drive aswell?

Andy