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floppycontrol(1)					      floppycontrol(1)

Name
       floppycontrol - floppy driver configuration utility

Note
       This  manpage  has  been automatically generated from fdutils's texinfo
       documentation.  However, this process is only approximative,  and  some
       items,  such as crossreferences, footnotes and indices are lost in this
       translation process.  Indeed, these items have no appropriate represen‐
       tation  in  the	manpage	 format.  Moreover, only the items specific to
       each command have been translated, and the  general  information	 about
       fdutils	has  been  dropped  in	the  manpage version.  Thus I strongly
       advise you to use the original texinfo doc.

       *      To generate a printable copy from the texinfo doc, run the  fol‐
	      lowing commands:

		     ./configure; make dvi; dvips fdutils.dvi

       *      To generate a html copy,	run:

		     ./configure; make html

	      A	      premade	    html       can	be	found	   at:
	      `http://www.tux.org/pub/knaff/fdutils'

       *      To generate an info copy (browsable  using  emacs'  info	mode),
	      run:

		     ./configure; make info

       The  texinfo doc looks most pretty when printed or as html.  Indeed, in
       the info version certain examples are difficult	to  read  due  to  the
       quoting conventions used in info.

Description
	  floppycontrol [-p] [--pollstate] [--printfdstate]
	  [-a operation-abort-threshold] [-c read-track-threshold]
	  [-r recalibrate-threshold] [-R reset-threshold]
	  [-e reporting-threshold] [-f] [-x] [-d drive][-F] [-T]
	  [-reset condition] [--debug] [--nodebug] [--messages]
	  [--nomessages] [--broken_dcl] [--working_dcl] [--inverted_dcl]
	  [--no_inverted_dcl] [--silent_dcl_clear] [--noisy_dcl_clear]
	  [-ccmos-type] [-hlt hlt] [-hut hut] [-srt srt] [-o spindown]
	  [-u spinup] [-s select-delay] [-rps rotations-per-second]
	  [-O spindown-offset] [-track max-tracks] [-timeout seconds]
	  [-C check-interval] [-n native-format]
	  [-autodetect autodetection-sequence] [-P] [--clrwerror]
	  [--printwerror] [-h]

       The floppycontrol program is used to configure the floppy driver.

General Options
       -h
       --help Print a help screen.

       -d drive
       --drive	drive
	      Selects	the  drive  to	configure.  The	 default  is  drive  0
	      (`/dev/fd0').

One time actions
       The following floppycontrol options don't set a	configuration  parame‐
       ter,  but  perform a one-time action. They are available to anybody who
       has write access to the drive

       -f
       --flush
	      Flushes (throws away) the dirty  data  buffers  associated  with
	      this drive.

       -x
       --eject
	      Ejects  the disk out of the drive (Sparc). The dirty buffers are
	      first committed to disk before ejecting it. Fails if the disk is
	      mounted.

       --reset	condition
	      Resets  the  FDC	under  condition . Condition may be one of the
	      following:

	      0	     resets the FDC only if a reset is needed anyways,

	      1	     resets the FDC also if a raw command has  been  performed
		     since the last reset, and

	      2	     resets the FDC unconditionally.

	      This  command  may be needed after some failed raw commands (see
	      section  fdrawcmd).

       -F
       --formatend
	      Issues an end format ioctl. This might be needed after exiting a
	      fdformat in an unclean way. superformat is not subject to this.

Printing current settings
       -T
       --type Print out the drive name of a floppy device. This is used by the
	      MAKEFLOPPIES script. The drive name is a letter (describing  the
	      drive type) followed by the capacity of the format in bytes. The
	      letter is E for 3.5 ED drives, H for 3.5 HD drives, D for 3.5 DD
	      drives, h for 5.25 HD drives and d for 5.25 DD drives. The drive
	      type letter corresponds to the oldest drive type supporting  the
	      format  of  this	device	node  (not necessarily the type of the
	      drive refered by this  node.)   For  the	generic	 format	 nodes
	      (/dev/fd0	 et  al.)  the name of "native format" of the drive is
	      printed, and for the default formats, if a  generic  format  has
	      been redefined, its name becomes (null).

       -p
       --print
	      Prints out the configuration of the drive. The names of the var‐
	      ious fields are the same as the names of the option to set them,
	      see below.

       -P
       --printstate
	      Prints  out  the	cached internal state of the driver. The first
	      line lists various attributes about the disk:

	      drive present
	      disk present
	      disk writable
		     These are only updated when the drive is accessed.

	      spinup
		     is the time when the motor became	switched  on  for  the
		     last time.

	      select
		     is	 the  time when the drive became selected for the last
		     time

	      first_read
		     is the time when the first read request  after  the  last
		     spin up completed.

	      probed_fmt
		     is	 the  the  index  of  the  autodetected	 format in the
		     autodetection sequence for this drive.

	      cylinder
		     is the cylinder where the drive head currently sits.   If
		     this number is negative, it has the following meaning:

		     *	    -1	means  that  the  driver doesn't know, but the
			    controller does (a seek command must be issued).

		     *	    -2 means that the controller doesn't know  either,
			    but	 is  sure  that	 it not beyond the 80th track.
			    The drive needs a recalibration.

		     *	    -3 means that the head  may	 be  beyond  the  80th
			    track.   The drive needs two successive recalibra‐
			    tions, because at  each  recalibration,  the  con‐
			    troller  only  issues  80  move  head commands per
			    recalibration.

	      maxblock
		     is the highest block number that has been read.

	      maxcylinder
		     is a boolean which is set when a sector that  is  not  on
		     cylinder  0/head  0  has  been  read.  These are used for
		     smart  invalidation  of  the  buffer  cache  on  geometry
		     change.   The  buffer  cache of the drive is only invali‐
		     dated  on	geometry  change  when	this  change  actually
		     implies  that  a block that has already been read changes
		     position. This optimization is useful  for	 mtools	 which
		     changes the geometry after reading the boot sector.

	      generation
		     is roughly the number of disk changes noticed since boot.
		     Disk changes are noticed if the disk is actually changed,
		     or if a flush command is issued and for both cases if any
		     I/O to/from the disk occurs. (i.e. if you insert  several
		     disks,  but don't do any I/O to them, the generation num‐
		     ber stays the same.)

	      refs   is number of open file descriptors for this drive. It  is
		     always   at   least  one,	because	 floppycontrol's  file
		     descriptor is counted too.

	      device
		     is format type (as derived from the minor device  number)
		     which is currently being used.

	      last_checked
		     is	 date (in jiffies) when the drive was last checked for
		     a disk change, and a disk was actually in the drive.

       --pollstate
	      Polls the drive and then prints out the internal	state  of  the
	      driver.(--Printstate  only  prints  out  the  cached information
	      without actually polling the drive for a disk change.)

       --printfdcstate
	      Prints out the state of the controller where the target drive is
	      attached to.

	      spec1
	      spec2  are the current values of those registers.

	      rate   is current data transfer rate

	      rawcmd
		     is true if a raw command has been executed since the last
		     reset. If this is the case, a  reset  will	 be  triggered
		     when a drive on the same FDC is next opened.

	      dor    is	 the  value of the digital output register. The 4 high
		     bits are a bit mask describing which drives are spinning,
		     the 2 low bits describe the selected drive, bit 2 is used
		     to reset the FDC, and bit 3 describes  whether  this  FDC
		     has  hold	of  the interrupt and the DMA. If you have two
		     FDCs, bit 3 is only set on one of them.

	      version
		     is	    the	    version	of	the	 FDC.	   See
		     `linux/include/linux/fdreg.h'  for	 a  listing of the FDC
		     version numbers.

	      reset  is true if a reset needs to be issued to the  FDC	before
		     processing the next request.

	      need_configure
		     is true if this FDC needs configuration by the FD_CONFIG‐
		     URE command.

	      has_fifo
		     is set if the FDC understands the FD_CONFIGURE command.

	      perp_mode
		     describes the perpendicular mode of this FDC. 0  is  non-
		     perpendicular  mode,  2 is HD perpendicular mode, 3 is ED
		     perpendicular mode, and 1 is unknown.

	      address
		     is the address of the first I/O port of  the  FDC.	  Nor‐
		     mally,  this is 0x3f0 for the first FDC and 0x370 for the
		     second.

Drive type configuration and autodetection
       The following options handle the different available drive types,  such
       as  double density vs. high density vs. extra density drives, and 5 1/4
       drives vs 3 1/2 drives.	Usually the drive type is  stored  in  a  non-
       volatile memory, called CMOS, under the form of an integer ranging from
       1 to 6.

       Different drive types are able to handle and autodetect different  for‐
       mats  (different autodetection lists). They also have different "native
       format name". The native format is the "usual" format with the  highest
       capacity supported by the drive. (For example 720KB on a double density
       3 1/2 drive, and 1.2MB on a high density 5 1/4 drive.)

       These settings are only changeable by the super user.

       -c cmos-type
       --cmos  cmos-type
	      Set the virtual CMOS type of the floppy drive. This is useful if

	      *	     the physical CMOS type is wrong  (this  may  happen  with
		     BIOSes which use a non-standard mapping),

	      *	     you have more than two drives (the physical CMOS may only
		     describe up to two drives).

	      *	     you have a BIOS that allows swapping drives A: and B: for
		     DOS.

       Right  now,  this  CMOS parameter is not used by the kernel, except for
       feeding it back to other applications (for instance superformat,	 flop‐
       pymeter or MAKEFLOPPIES).  It is also possible to supply a virtual CMOS
       type with the cmos boot option (see section   Boottime  configuration).
       If  possible,  I recommend you use the boot option, rather than floppy‐
       control, because the boot option also sets any parameters derived  from
       the  CMOS  type,	 such as the autodetection list and the native format,
       whereas floppycontrol does not.

       -A  autodetect-seq
       --autodetect  autodetect-seq
	      Set the autodetection sequence (see section  Autodetection)  The
	      autodetection  sequence  is  a  comma-separated  list of at most
	      eight format descriptors. Each format  descriptor	 is  a	format
	      number  optionally  followed  by the letter t.  For drive 0, the
	      format number is the minor device	 number	 divided  by  4.   The
	      autodetection  sequence  is  used	 by the driver to find out the
	      format of a newly inserted disk. The formats are tried one after
	      the  other,  and	the first matching format is retained. To test
	      the format, the driver tries to read the	first  sector  on  the
	      first  track on the first head when t is not given, or the whole
	      first track when t is given. Thus, autodetection	cannot	detect
	      the  number of tracks. However, this information is contained in
	      the boot sector, which is now accessible. The  boot  sector  can
	      then  be	used  by  mtools  to  configure	 the correct number of
	      tracks.

	      Example:

		 7,4,24t,25

	      means to try out the formats whose minor device numbers  are  28
	      (1.44M),	16  (720KB),  96  (1.76MB),  and 100 (1.92MB), in this
	      order. For the 1.76MB format, try to read	 the  whole  track  at
	      once.

	      Reading  the  whole  track  at  once  allows  you to distinguish
	      between two formats which differ only in the number of  sectors.
	      (The  format with the most sectors must be tried first.)	If you
	      use mtools, you do not need this feature, as mtools  can	figure
	      out  the	number	of  sectors  without  any help from the floppy
	      driver, by looking at the boot sector.

	      Reading the whole track at once may also speed up the first read
	      by  200 milliseconds. However, if, on the other hand, you try to
	      read a disk which has less sectors than  the  format,  you  lose
	      some time.

	      I	 suggest  that you put the most often used format in the first
	      place (barring other constraints), as each format that is	 tried
	      out takes 400 milliseconds.

       -n native-format
       --native_format	native-format
	      Set  the	native	format	of  this drive. The native format of a
	      drive is the highest standard format available for  this	drive.
	      (Example:	 For  a	 5 1/4 HD drive it is the usual 1200K format.)
	      This is format is used to	 make  up  the	format	name  for  the
	      generic  device  (which  is the name of the native format). This
	      drive name is read back from  the	 kernel	 by  the  MAKEFLOPPIES
	      script which uses it to decide which device nodes to create.

Configuration of the disk change line
       --broken_dcl
	      Assumes  that  the  disk change line of the drive is broken.  If
	      this is set, disk changes are assumed  to	 happen	 whenever  the
	      device  node  is	first opened. The physical disk change line is
	      ignored.

	      This option should be  used  if  disk  changes  are  either  not
	      detected	at  all, or if disk changes are detected when the disk
	      was actually not changed.	 If this option fixes the problem, I'd
	      recommend	 that  you try to trace the root cause of the problem.
	      Indeed, this options results in reduced performance due to  spu‐
	      rious cache flushes.

	      The  following  hardware	problems may lead to a bad disk change
	      line:

	      *	     If the floppy cable is not inserted straight, or if it is
		     kinked,  the  disk change line is likely to suffer, as it
		     is on the edge of the cable.  Gently press on  both  con‐
		     nectors  of  the  cable  (drive and controller) to insure
		     that all wires make contact.  Visually inspect the cable,
		     and if it shows obvious traces of damage, get a new one.

	      *	     On	 some  drives,	the  locations disk change line may be
		     chosen by jumper. Make sure that your  floppy  controller
		     and  your	drive  agree  on which line is the disk change
		     line.

	      *	     Some older drives (mostly double density  5  1/4  drives)
		     don't have a disk change line.  In this case, you have no
		     choice other than to leave the broken_dcl option on.

       --working_dcl
	      Assumes that the disk change line	 works	all  right.  Switching
	      from  broken to working may lead to unexpected results after the
	      first disk change.

       --inverted_dcl
	      Assumes that this disk drive uses an inverted disk change	 line.
	      Apparently this is the case for IBM thinkpads.

       --no_inverted_dcl
	      Assumes  that this drive follows the standard convention for the
	      disk change line.

       --noisy_dcl_clear
	      Switches off silent disk change line clearing for this drive.

Timing Parameters
       This section describes how to configure drive timings.	To  set	 these
       parameters,  you	 need  superuser  privileges. All times are in "jiffy"
       units (10 milliseconds), unless otherwise specified.

       --hlt  hlt
	      Set the head load time (in microseconds) for this floppy	drive.
	      The  head	 load  time  describes	how long the floppy controller
	      waits after seeking or changing heads before allowing access  to
	      a track.

       --hut  hut
	      Set  the	head  unload  time  (in	 microseconds) for this floppy
	      drive.  The head unload time describes how long the floppy  con‐
	      troller  waits after an access before directing its attention to
	      the other head, or before seeking.

       --srt  srt
	      Set the step rate (in microseconds) for this floppy drive.   The
	      step  rate describes how long the drive head stays on one cylin‐
	      der when seeking.	 Setting this value to low  (too  fast	seeks)
	      may  make	 seeks	fail,  because	the  motor doesn't follow fast
	      enough.

       -u spinup-time
       --spinup	 spinup-time
	      Set the spinup time of the floppy drive. In order to do read  or
	      write  to the floppy disk, it must spin. It takes a certain time
	      for the motor to reach enough  speed  to	read  or  write.  This
	      parameter	 describes this time. The floppy driver doesn't try to
	      access the drive before the spinup time has elapsed. With modern
	      controllers,  you	 may  set this time to zero, as the controller
	      itself enforces the right delay.

       -o spindown-time
       --spindown  spindown-time
	      Set the spindown time of this floppy drive.  The	motor  is  not
	      stopped immediately after the operation completes, because there
	      might be more operations following. The  spindown	 time  is  the
	      time the driver waits before switching off the motor.

       -O spindown-offset
       --spindown_offset  spindown-offset
	      Set  the spindown offset of this floppy drive. This parameter is
	      used to set the position in which the disk stops. This is useful
	      to  minimize  the next access time. (If the first sector is just
	      near the head at the very moment at which the disk  has  reached
	      enough speed, you win 200 milliseconds against the most unfavor‐
	      able situation).

	      This is done by clocking the time where the  first  I/O  request
	      completes, and using this time to calculate the current position
	      of the disk.

       -s select-delay
       --select_delay  select-delay
	      Set the select delay of this floppy drive.  This	is  the	 delay
	      that  the driver waits after selecting the drive and issuing the
	      first command to it. For modern controllers/drives, you may  set
	      this to zero.

       -C check-interval
       --checkfreq  check-interval
	      Set  the	maximal	 disk  change check interval.  The disk change
	      line is checked whenever a  read	or  write  to  the  device  is
	      issued,  and  it	has  not  been	checked for more than interval
	      jiffies.

Debugging messages
       This subsection describes how to switch the  available  debugging  mes‐
       sages on and off.

       --debug
	      Switch  debugging	 output on. The debugging information includes
	      timing information. This option might be useful to fine-tune the
	      timing  options for your local setups. (But for most normal pur‐
	      poses, the default values are good enough.)

       --nodebug
	      Switch debugging output off.

       --messages
	      Print  informational  messages  after  autodetection,   geometry
	      parameter clearing and dma over/underruns.

       --nomessages
	      Don't print informational messages after these events.

Error Handling Options
       The  following  options	configure the behavior of the floppy driver in
       case of read/write errors. They may be used by any user who  has	 write
       privileges  for	the  drive.  Whenever  the floppy driver encounters an
       error, a retry counter is incremented. If the  value  of	 this  counter
       gets  bigger  than  the	thresholds  described below, the corresponding
       actions are performed at the next retry. The counter is reset when  the
       read or write finally terminates, whether successfully or not.

       -a operation-abort-trshld
       --abort	operation-abort-trshld
	      Tell  the	 floppy	 driver	 to stop trying to read/write a sector
	      after operation-abort-trshld retries, and signal the  I/O	 error
	      to the user.

       -t read-track-trshld
       --readtrack  read-track-trshld
	      Tell the floppy driver to switch from track-reading mode to sec‐
	      tor-at-a-time-mode after read-track-trshld retries.

       -r recalibrate-trshld
       --recalibrate  recalibrate-trshld
	      Tell the floppy driver to recalibrate the	 drive	after  recali‐
	      brate-trshld retries.

       -R reset-treshold
       --reset	reset-threshold
	      Tell  the	 floppy	 driver	 to  reset the controller after reset-
	      threshold retries. After a controller reset, the	floppy	driver
	      also recalibrates all drives connected to that controller.

       -e error-report-trshld
       --reporting  error-report-trshld
	      Tell  the	 floppy driver to start printing error messages to the
	      console after error-report-trshld retries.

Write error reporting
       Due to the buffer cache, write errors cannot always be reported to  the
       writing user program as soon as the write system call returns.  Indeed,
       the actual writing may take place much  later.  If  a  write  error  is
       encountered,  the  floppy driver stores information about it in its per
       drive write error structure.  This write error  structure  stays	 until
       explicitly  cleared.  It can for example be queried by a backup program
       which wants to make sure that the data has been written successfully.

       --clrwerror
	      Clears the write error structure.

       --printwerror
	      Prints the contents of the write error structure:

	      write_errors
		     is a count of how many write errors have  occurred	 since
		     the structure was last cleared.

	      badness
		     is the maximal number of retries that were needed to com‐
		     plete an operation (reads, writes and formats).

	      first_error_sector
		     is	 where	the  first   (chronologically)	 write	 error
		     occurred.

	      first_error_generation
		     is	 the  disk  change  generation	in which did the first
		     write error occurred.  The disk change  generation	 is  a
		     number which is incremented at each disk change.

	      last_error_sector
		     and

	      last_error_generation
		     are similar.

Other drive configuration options
       This  subsection lists per drive configuration options, which don't fit
       in any other category.  They are available only to the superuser:

       --tracks	 max-tracks
	      Set the maximal numbers of physical tracks that this  drive  may
	      handle.  If  you	have  a	 drive which is only able to handle 80
	      tracks (making strange noises when you try to format or  read  a
	      disk  with  more	than  80  tracks),  use this option to prevent
	      unprivileged users of damaging your drive by repeatedly  reading
	      disks with more than 80 tracks.

	      If  you  trust  your  users and your disks, you don't need this.
	      With most drives you don't need to worry	anyways.  See  section
	      More cylinders, for details.

       -i sector-interleave
       --interleave sector-interleave
	      Set  the number of sectors beyond which sector interleaving will
	      be used.	This option will only be used by the  FDFMTTRK	ioctl.
	      The  fdformat  command,  which  is now considered obsolete, uses
	      FDFMTTRK ioctl, but superformat does not.

See Also
       Fdutils' texinfo doc

fdutils-5.5			    03Mar05		      floppycontrol(1)
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