formatting disks and 4.2BSD

[Douglas Robinson]

I have just become aware of a very nasty little bit of incompatibility.
If you have heard of this before, please ignore this - we are relatively
new to the net.

We just finished formatting a new Fujitsu Eagle / SC750 combo and learned
the hard way (MANY wasted hours) that:

4.2BSD wants the BAD SECTOR information in the MANUFACTURER'S AREA, NOT
in the SITE AREA where the DEC and EMULEX formatters put them!!!!!!!!!!
4.2BSD does NOT recognize the information put down by the DEC and EMULEX
formatters!  You have to print them out using the DEC/EMULEX formatter
and then enter them by hand via bad144(8).  This little tidbit of
information appears NOWHERE in the documentation that was distributed to
us with 4.2BSD!!!

NOT only that, but when bad144(8) runs, it wipes out the information in
the SITE AREA (zero's it).

(We learned this due to a new formatter from EMULEX that prints out the
two areas separately!!)
-- 
Doug Robinson		Jobs don't kill programmers... programmers kill jobs!
Cybermation, Inc.	617/492-8810
377 Putnam Avenue
Cambridge, MA 02139 (USA)

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