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Conference turris::digital_unix

Title:DIGITAL UNIX(FORMERLY KNOWN AS DEC OSF/1)
Notice:Welcome to the Digital UNIX Conference
Moderator:SMURF::DENHAM
Created:Thu Mar 16 1995
Last Modified:Fri Jun 06 1997
Last Successful Update:Fri Jun 06 1997
Number of topics:10068
Total number of notes:35879

9502.0. "mformat disks not readable on pc?" by NNTPD::"[email protected]" (gk) Tue Apr 15 1997 06:35

	Hi 

	I'm running V4.0b and I had a need to move some files to a pc on
	a customer site to ftp onwards to their remote D.U. system.

	I 'mformat a:' a floppy, and no probs, so a quick check by 'mdir a:'
	and still ok.

	then a 'mcopy file a:' and still fine.
	another check by 'mdir a:" and off i shoot to site...


	insert diskette in win95 laptop and the blasted thing can't see that
	there is any format on the floppy!!! it just errors out.

	a format of the floppy onthe laptop works (so the disk is ok) and
	can be read and understood on D.U....

	is this expected? (the problem bit!)

	regards

	Gary
 
[Posted by WWW Notes gateway]
T.RTitleUserPersonal
Name		DateLines
9502.1not scsi floppy either..NNTPD::"[email protected]"gkTue Apr 15 1997 06:5314

	more info:

	can't use scu either, its a floppy on a Astation 255 - so its
	on the ISA bus.

	ideas anyone? (must be something real basic that i'm missing!)

	ta

	Gary

[Posted by WWW Notes gateway]
9502.2SMURF::KNIGHTFred KnightWed Apr 16 1997 14:574
mtools just does the S/W format.  You probably
forgot the fddisk utility to do the H/W format.

	Fred
9502.3nearly....yes thats it.NNTPD::"[email protected]"gkThu Apr 17 1997 07:1048

	Hmmm

	thanks for the pointer Fred!

	guess my understanding of things PC are minimal anyhow...


	ok, so this is what  I've tried.

	whether I do an fddisk -fmt -f /dev/rfd0a or not
	I can still get non pc format disks (as far as the pc is concerned).
	(but can still be read by mtools things!)

	If after a fddisk i just do a mformat a:  it still fails on the pc.
	If i do a mformat -t 80 -h 2 -s 18 a: after the fddisk it works.

	I guess I had assumed that mformat a: was like a quick format (erase)
	on the pc, and mformat -t 80 -h 2 -s 18 a: was like a full format
	on the pc....it seems NOT!

	Why do it default to trashing the disk with the QUICK command?

	now that I HAVE done a fddisk I cannot go back and recreate the
	problem exactly. I did previously do a FULL mformat -t 80 -h 2 -s 18
	a: and still the pc disliked it (well the quick had failed so I had
	to try something). The floppy was a working PC formated floppy.

	I must assume therefore that fddisk has helped.	

	I lied I did go back just now....I tar'd something to the disk to
	trash it... and then a FULL format on the PC (pc now likes it)
	followed by a mformat -t 80 -h2 -s 18 a: and it STILL fails on the pc.

	do a fddisk and a FULL mformat and it'll work on pc and mtools.

	not sure if this is a problem anymore - but might catch someone out.

	It doesn't "feel" right that a PC disk can get trashed and become
	unusable unless fddisk writes stuff that you expect mformat to..

	hope this helps someone


	Gary

[Posted by WWW Notes gateway]
9502.4I'd start with a fresh diskette at this pointSUBPAC::FARICELLIThu Apr 17 1997 12:1312
   I'm puzzled. I've never had to use mformat *or* fddisk when using mtools
   to transfer files from D.U. to my Win95 system at home.
   I'm currently using mtools-3.0, but the previous version of mtools
   worked OK too.

   I just took a preformatted diskette out of the box and it worked fine.

   Have you tried using a 'fresh out of the box' diskette? Perhaps your
   playing around with formatting messed it up?

   -- John Faricelli