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diff --git a/sag-0.6.1-www/sag-0.6.1.html/x787.html b/sag-0.6.1-www/sag-0.6.1.html/x787.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..11593f2 --- /dev/null +++ b/sag-0.6.1-www/sag-0.6.1.html/x787.html @@ -0,0 +1,205 @@ +<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//Norman Walsh//DTD DocBook HTML 1.0//EN"> +<HTML +><HEAD +><TITLE +>Floppies</TITLE +><META +NAME="GENERATOR" +CONTENT="Modular DocBook HTML Stylesheet"><LINK +REL="HOME" +TITLE="The Linux System Administrators' Guide" +HREF="book1.html"><LINK +REL="UP" +TITLE="Using Disks and Other Storage Media" +HREF="c701.html"><LINK +REL="PREVIOUS" +TITLE="Hard disks" +HREF="x747.html"><LINK +REL="NEXT" +TITLE="CD-ROM's" +HREF="x801.html"></HEAD +><BODY +BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" +TEXT="#000000" +><DIV +CLASS="NAVHEADER" +><TABLE +WIDTH="100%" +BORDER="0" +CELLPADDING="0" +CELLSPACING="0" +><TR +><TH +COLSPAN="3" +ALIGN="center" +>The Linux System Administrators' Guide</TH +></TR +><TR +><TD +WIDTH="10%" +ALIGN="left" +VALIGN="bottom" +><A +HREF="x747.html" +>Prev</A +></TD +><TD +WIDTH="80%" +ALIGN="center" +VALIGN="bottom" +>Chapter 4. Using Disks and Other Storage Media</TD +><TD +WIDTH="10%" +ALIGN="right" +VALIGN="bottom" +><A +HREF="x801.html" +>Next</A +></TD +></TR +></TABLE +><HR +ALIGN="LEFT" +WIDTH="100%"></DIV +><DIV +CLASS="SECT1" +><H1 +CLASS="SECT1" +><A +NAME="AEN787" +>Floppies</A +></H1 +><P +>A floppy disk consists of a flexible membrane covered on one + or both sides with similar magnetic substance as a hard disk. + The floppy disk itself doesn't have a read-write head, that is + included in the drive. A floppy corresponds to one platter in + a hard disk, but is removable and one drive can be used to + access different floppies, whereas the hard disk is one + indivisible unit.</P +><P +>Like a hard disk, a floppy is divided into tracks and sectors + (and the two corresponding tracks on either side of a floppy + form a cylinder), but there are many fewer of them than on a + hard disk.</P +><P +>A floppy drive can usually use several different types of disks; + for example, a 3.5 inch drive can use both 720 kB and + 1.44 MB disks. Since the drive has to operate a bit differently + and the operating system must know how big the disk is, there + are many device files for floppy drives, one per combination of + drive and disk type. + Therefore, <TT +CLASS="FILENAME" +>/dev/fd0H1440</TT +> is the first floppy drive (fd0), + which must be a 3.5 inch drive, + using a 3.5 inch, high density disk (H) of + size 1440 kB (1440), i.e., a normal 3.5 inch HD floppy. + For more information on the naming conventions for the floppy + devices, see XXX (device list).</P +><P +>The names for floppy drives are complex, however, and Linux + therefore has a special floppy device type that automatically + detects the type of the disk in the drive. It works by + trying to read the first sector of a newly inserted floppy + using different floppy types until it finds the correct one. + This naturally requires that the floppy is formatted first. + The automatic devices are called <TT +CLASS="FILENAME" +>/dev/fd0</TT +>, + <TT +CLASS="FILENAME" +>/dev/fd1</TT +>, and so on.</P +><P +>The parameters the automatic device uses to access a disk can + also be set using the program \cmd{setfdprm}. This can be + useful if you need to use disks that do not follow any usual + floppy sizes, e.g., if they have an unusual number of sectors, + or if the autodetecting for some reason fails and the proper + device file is missing.</P +><P +>Linux can handle many nonstandard floppy disk formats + in addition to all the standard ones. Some of these require + using special formatting programs. We'll skip these disk + types for now, but in the mean time you can examine the + <TT +CLASS="FILENAME" +>/etc/fdprm</TT +> file. It specifies the settings + that <B +CLASS="COMMAND" +>setfdprm</B +> recognizes.</P +><P +>The operating system must know when a disk has been changed in + a floppy drive, for example, in order to avoid using cached + data from the previous disk. Unfortunately, the signal line + that is used for this is sometimes broken, and worse, this won't + always be noticeable when using the drive from within MS-DOS. + If you are experiencing weird problems using floppies, this might + be the reason. The only way to correct it is to repair the + floppy drive.</P +></DIV +><DIV +CLASS="NAVFOOTER" +><HR +ALIGN="LEFT" +WIDTH="100%"><TABLE +WIDTH="100%" +BORDER="0" +CELLPADDING="0" +CELLSPACING="0" +><TR +><TD +WIDTH="33%" +ALIGN="left" +VALIGN="top" +><A +HREF="x747.html" +>Prev</A +></TD +><TD +WIDTH="34%" +ALIGN="center" +VALIGN="top" +><A +HREF="book1.html" +>Home</A +></TD +><TD +WIDTH="33%" +ALIGN="right" +VALIGN="top" +><A +HREF="x801.html" +>Next</A +></TD +></TR +><TR +><TD +WIDTH="33%" +ALIGN="left" +VALIGN="top" +>Hard disks</TD +><TD +WIDTH="34%" +ALIGN="center" +VALIGN="top" +><A +HREF="c701.html" +>Up</A +></TD +><TD +WIDTH="33%" +ALIGN="right" +VALIGN="top" +>CD-ROM's</TD +></TR +></TABLE +></DIV +></BODY +></HTML +>
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