Hi all,
Think I've discovered another issue with the floppy driver.....
Basically, if won't play ball with a 360K 5.25" Matsushita drive (JA-551).
The mobo's BIOS is configured for one drive (A:) - 360K 5.25"
There's no secondary FDCs, and the JA-551 is the only FDD connected.
If I boot FreeDOS (1.0 and an earlier version), it formats, reads, writes a
number of disks perfectly
If I then boot Linux (System Rescue CD 1.1.4), I am unable to mount or
format any DSDD disk :-(
With System Rescue CD, I have to modrobe the floppy module; and that then
gives me a
/dev/fd0d360
....with minor number 4; which is correct, as I understand things.
If I then format with :
fdformat /dev/fd0d360
....it fails everytime with FDFMTTRK : Input / Output error
It also fails with :
fdformat /dev/fd0
It's the same story with Slackware 12.1 (booted from CD)
Under FreeDOS, I can simply type :
format b: /u
....and it formats perfectly everytime
incidentally, FreeDOS sees the FDD on b: because FreeDOS itself uses A:
(bootable floppy image on the FreeDOS CD)
Earlier in the day, I was formatting 1200Kib disks in a HD 5.25" FDD under
System Rescue CD, so the problem is confined to 360K DSDD FDDs :-(
If further info is needed; please don't hesitate to ask
Cheers for now
Justin
Hi again,
Have played some more, and here's where I'm at :
Primary FDC (on mobo) has 1.44Mb drive connected and powered
Secondary FDC (on AHA-1542B) has 1.44Mb drive connected and powered
I boot System Rescue CD, and type the following command :
modprobe floppy "floppy=4,4,cmos"
and I get the following in /var/log/messages :
Aug 03 16:11:47 sysresccd floppy4: setting CMOS code to 4
Aug 03 16:11:47 sysresccd Floppy drive(s): fd0 is 2.88M AMI BIOS, fd4 is 1.44M
Aug 03 16:11:47 sysresccd FDC 0 is a post-1991 82077
There's no mention of "FDC 1", and /dev only gets populated with device files
for fd0; nothing gets created for fd4. So I type :
mknod /dev/fd4 b 2 128
chgrp floppy /dev/fd4
chmod 640 /dev/fd4
So /dev/fd4 looks as follows :
brw-r----- 1 root floppy 2, 128 2009-08-03 16:12 /dev/fd4
Then as soon as I try and access fd4; with
something like :
mount /dev/fd4 /mnt/floppy
I get :
mount: /dev/fd4 is not a valid block device
It's as though the second FDC isn't getting detected. The jumper is set for
0x370, and the AHA-1542B works fine as a primary FDC (jumper set for 0x3F0)
Surely this should work ? I'd be inclined to suspect the FDC on the AHA-1542B,
but it works fine as a primary FDC
One thing I did notice; I ran cat /proc/ioports | grep 37, and got the
following :
0376-0376 : 0000:00:07.1
0376-0376 : pata_via
0378-037a : parport0
037b-037f : parport0
Is the pata_via blocking the secondary FDC IO port ? I notice my main PC shows
something similar :
0376-0376 : 0000:00:06.0
0376-0376 : ide1
0378-037a : parport0
I'm going to try an ISA I/O card, an older PC, and maybe another Linux
distro, but I really would welcome any suggestions.
TIA
Justin
Hi all,
Okay, I've re-jumpered the AHA-1542B thus :
DMA 3
IRQ 10
IOport : 0x370
.....and I've had SOME success.
I have managed to access fd0 and fd4.....just not at the same time.
To get fd0 recognised, I type :
modprobe floppy "floppy=two_fdc 2,dma 6,irq 0,4,cmos"
....obviously "modprobe floppy" would have sufficed here.
To get fd4 recognised, I type
rmmod floppy
modprobe floppy "floppy=two_fdc 3,dma 10,irq 4,4,cmos"
....and I'm able to access /dev/fd4
I just can't access fd1 and fd4 at the same time; because I can't get FDC-0
and FDC-1 recognised at the same time.
It's either one or the other; but not both.
SO, I tried playing with the modprobe command :
modprobe floppy "floppy=two_fdc 2,3,dma 6,10,irq 0,4,cmos 4,4,cmos"
and
modprobe floppy "floppy=two_fdc 2,dma 6,irq 0,4,cmos 3,dma 10,irq 4,4,cmos"
.....and no joy.
I even tried loading the floppy module twice - once for each FDC - just
returns the prompt, without echoing anything to /var/log/messages
SO.....Question now; is how can I load the floppy module, such that I can
specify both IRQs and both DMA channels ?
It's as though the floppy module is happy to play with either FDC.....just
not both :-(
So near.....was primed for that jig ;-)
Justin
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Justin Eastham <jceastham(a)googlemail.com>
Date: Mon, Aug 3, 2009 at 9:44 PM
Subject: Re: [Fdutils] Second FDC not recognised.
To: David C Niemi <niemi(a)tuxers.net>
I'm beginning to think it's the PC.
The distro I'm using (System Rescue CD) seems to have all the necessary
floppy support.
I'm sure the AHA-1542b is okay, because when it's set to be the primary FDC
(mobo's FDC disabled), then I can boot from the FDD connected to the
AHA-1542b.
Did PCs from a certain point in time stop supporting a second FDC ? But even
then; I'm not convinced as the kernel is just talking to an IO port (in this
case 0x370) and using standard stuff like IRQs and DMA channels.
If the AHA-1542b will play ball on 0x3F0, then why not 0x370 ?
I'm satisfied I'm using the correct modprobe floppy command (unless I'm told
different)
I'm going to try with an older PC, but I'm running out of ideas :-(
It's frustrating, as I know this should work. I can't use a pre-PCI machine,
because I've got a Catweasel PCI card to go in.
The plan was to have a "floppy" PC, with :
2.88Mb 3.5" as fd0
360K 5.25" as fd1
....both connected to the primary FDC via the Catweasel. This means I can
read all the DOS formats (apart from 1200K 5.25"), plus Amiga and C64 disk
formats.
The secondary FDC was to connect the 1200K 5.25" FDD as fd4
Then I could have a single PC that would handle all the different disk
formats and filesystems (FAT, Amiga, C64 etc)
Just tried an ISA I/O card, but it looks like the FDC is broken on it, as it
won't even function when configured to be the primary FDC (with the mobo's
FDC disabled)
Any help is much appreciated - like what era of PC have people had success
with ?
TIA
Justin
On Mon, Aug 3, 2009 at 8:26 PM, David C Niemi <niemi(a)tuxers.net> wrote:
>
> Hello Justin,
>
> It's probably been 15 years since I last did this sort of work. I think
> you're on the right track -- if it found FDC 1 it would have said so, so
> something must be blocking or disabling it.
>
> DCN
>
>
Hi,
I have an Adaptec 1542B ISA card, which works fine as a primary FDC
(jumpered for 0x3F0), but I can't get Linux to see it as a secondary FDC
(jumpered for 0x370)
I've read the fdutils documentation; specifically the sections on
floppy=two_fdc and floppy=drive,type,cmos, but I'm not clear. It doesn't
explain how to express drive; is it a single digit ? Is if fdx, where x is a
single digit ?
Based on the following setup :
Primary FDC (on motherboard) - 2.88Mb 3.5" FDD, and 360K 5.25" FDD
Secondary FDC (AHA-1542B) - 1200K 5.25" FDD
....could somebody shed some light on the parameters I need for the
"modprobe floppy" command ?
Thanks in advance
J Eastham
