[ale] Reading old XDF formatted floppies

[Michael B. Trausch]

On Wed, 2009-10-07 at 11:02 -0400, krwatson at cc.gatech.edu wrote:
> Frequently asked question about the Linux floppy driver
> http://fdutils.linux.lu/faq.html
> 
> How should I describe the Xdf formats in /etc/mtools?
> http://fdutils.linux.lu/faq.html#mtools-xdf 

Yeah, there seems to be zero chance for using a USB floppy drive.  Or at
least, that I know of.  What I'd need is to be able to low-level program
the device.  ufiformat helped to clear things up a bit, so now I know
what low-level floppy formats the drive does support:

  IBM PC standard 720k
  IBM PC standard 1440k
  Nonstandard 1200kb (2,400 blocks of 512 bytes)
  Nonstandard 1232kb (1,232 blocks of 1024 bytes)

It will also *read* at least those low-level formats and Microsoft DMF
(21 sectors/track, 512 bytes/sector, 80 tracks, 1720kb or so).

As far as XDF disks go, only the first track is visible to this drive;
all subsequent tracks are actually in the XDF low-level format (the
first track is a standard 18 sectors/track, 512 bytes/sector track with
a mini-FAT filesystem and a README.XDF file).  So, attempts to read
track 1 or further on XDF-formatted media result in strange errors like
"recorded entity not found" (translation: I can't find the bloody tracks
and sectors) or "CRC error" (translation: I thought I found a sector,
but I couldn't read it right).  Damn.

What would be nice is a programmable USB floppy drive that doesn't make
assumptions about low-level format or encoding type.  Alas, I know of
none.  Time to buy another internal floppy drive.

And hopefully it will last this time.  I'm sick of new floppy drives,
they break so easily compared to floppy drives from the 90s.

	--- Mike

-- 
Blog:  http://mike.trausch.us/blog/
Misc. Software:  http://mike.trausch.us/software/

“The greater danger for most of us lies not in setting our aim too
high and falling short; but in setting our aim too low, and achieving
our mark.” —Michelangelo