Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!lavaca.uh.edu!menudo.uh.edu!nuchat!kevin
From: kevin@nuchat.sccsi.com (Kevin Brown)
Subject: Re: Kernel Goes Bananas
Message-ID: <1991Apr4.144044.21289@nuchat.sccsi.com>
Keywords: Aaaaaaarrrrgggghhhh...
Organization: /users/kevin/./files/news/talk/abortion
References: <1991Apr4.052424.26999@cs.cornell.edu>
Distribution: inet
Date: Thu, 4 Apr 91 14:40:44 GMT

In article <1991Apr4.052424.26999@cs.cornell.edu> papo@CS.Cornell.EDU (Luis R. Anaya) writes:
>Hi!
>
>I was happily mkfs'ing some floppies when suddently the machine blew
>up and said:
>
>Unrecoverable write error on device 2/0 block 359
>Unvercoverable disk error on device 2/0 block 359
>
>Non Maskable Interrumpt
>Process Number -2 pc = 0x0060:0x000009c7
>
>I though that was the drive so I test it out with MS-DOS format.
>
>It formatted the disk in ms-dos and when I mkfs the floppies
>they formatted in MINIX.  
>
>What I'm doing wrong?

Well, I can't necessarily fault you for not RTFMing, since I don't see the
relevent information in TFM, either.

mkfs just creates a 'file system', which is a combination of a 'superblock'
which contains information about the file system as a whole, a 'bitmap' which
is consulted to determine which blocks have been allocated and which haven't,
and a root directory.

The problem is, of course, that mkfs doesn't FORMAT the disk at all.  All it
does is write the base file system information out to the device you specify,
and it expects formatted media to be there.

The upshot of all this is that you have to format your floppies before you
can use them.  Unfortuantely, unless you have the 'format' program, you
have to do the formatting from DOS.

If there is sufficient interest, I'll be glad to post the 'format' program.
I think it requires 1.5, but I'm not sure (Bruce?)...

>Luis Roberto Anaya-Rivera papo@cs.cornell.edu


--
Kevin Brown						Disclaimer: huh?
kevin@nuchat.sccsi.com					csci31f7@cl.uh.edu 

Minix -- the Unix[tm] of the 90's.  System V -- the Multics of the 90's.  :-)

