Floppy formatting/available disk space

[John B. Milton]

In article <974 at ccnysci.UUCP> jeffrey at ccnysci.UUCP (Jeffrey L Bromberger) writes:
>In the iv library (/usr/lib/iv) there are 6 different formats for a
>floppy disk.  The "Format Floppy" window uses the FDnl (Floppy Disk-no
>loader) format, and then runs a mkfs to give a filestore with just
>over 600 blocks and 100 inodes.  Would there be any advantage to using
>the FD10nl (10 sectors per track) format instead of the standard 8
>sector format?
Only the ability to put more on the disk :) I guess what you really want to ask
is, would there be any DISadvantage to using 10 sector formats. Floppy drives
have come a long way since IBM first designed the formats used on them. The
larger the number of sectors on the disk, the smaller the gaps between the
sector data and the headers becomes. The gaps are there to compensate for
fluctuations is drive motor speed and differences in speed from one drive to
another. The Comodore Amiga gets around this problem, and gets more space on
the disk by rewriting the entire track every time. These days drives are stable
enough that you don't have to worry about using the 10 sector format. AT&T even
switched to it for their software distribution.

>                How would one change the parameters to mkfs to use the
>larger number of blocks?
Mkfs automagically figures out how to use the entire partition by default.

>I've also noted that cpio will work on a disk that has been formatted,
>but has no filestore written (the disk has been iv'd but not mkfs'd).
>Would the amount of data stored on a disk (by cpio) increase by using
>the 10 sector format?
Cpio just overwrites the filesystem, since they both start at the beginning of
/dev/rfp021, the second partition. Just try to mount a floppy with a cpio on it
An mkfs can later be run on a cpioed disk.

>As an aside, what exactly does the "loader" (either silent or verbose)
>do?  Is there a simple example of when one would use this loader?
Loader means boot loader. The first screen of text to come up when you start
up the machine is the silent laoder. The verbose loader looks the same, only
it stops to ask what drive you want to boot from, and what files you want to
load. The disadvantage to using the verbose loader is that when your machine
goes down from a power hit, and then comes up, it just sits there without
rebooting. The same loader can be loaded in from floppy or hard disk. Try
formatting a floppy fdfmt10.vl, then put it in the drive and re-boot.

John
-- 
John Bly Milton IV, jbm at uncle.UUCP, n8emr!uncle!jbm at osu-cis.cis.ohio-state.edu
(614) h:294-4823, w:764-4272;  MS-DOS is a beautiful flower that smells bad!