fdformat doesn't work anymore?

[Daniel O'Connor]

I am trying to format a floppy in a FreeBSD 4.9-mumble system but it spits 
errors on most tracks.

I've tried several floppies, but the result is the same. If I do "dd 
if=/dev/zero of=/dev/fd0c" it completes without error.

ie ->
[midget 19:47] ~ >sudo fdformat /dev/fd0c
Format 1440K floppy `/dev/fd0c'? (y/n): y
Processing EEEEVEEVEVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVEVVVVVVVVVVVE done.
Errors encountered:
Cyl Head Sect   Error
  1    0    5   CRC error in data field
  2    0    5   CRC error in data field
  2    1    5   CRC error in data field
  3    0    5   CRC error in data field
  3    1    5   CRC error in data field
  4    0    5   CRC error in data field
  4    1    5   CRC error in data field
  5    0    5   CRC error in data field
  5    1    5   CRC error in data field
  6    0    5   CRC error in data field
(Further errors not printed.)

vs
[midget 19:46] ~ >sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/fd0c
dd: /dev/fd0c: end of device
2881+0 records in
2880+0 records out
1474560 bytes transferred in 52.879389 secs (27885 bytes/sec)

Nothing is logged in dmesg during fdformat.

I have a
fdc0: <NEC 72065B or clone> at port 0x3f0-0x3f5,0x3f7 irq 6 drq 2 on isa0
fdc0: FIFO enabled, 8 bytes threshold
fd0: <1440-KB 3.5" drive> on fdc0 drive 0

Running on a 1Ghz K7 KT133 system. I tried it in my laptop (Inpsiron 8000 
PIII700, ICH2) with similar results.
[chowder 19:50] ~ >sudo fdformat -f 1440 /dev/fd0c
Format 1440K floppy `/dev/fd0c'? (y/n): y
Processing EEEEEEEVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV done.
Errors encountered:
Cyl Head Sect   Error
  1    0    5   CRC error in data field
  2    0    5   CRC error in data field
  2    1    5   CRC error in data field
  3    0    5   CRC error in data field
  3    1    5   CRC error in data field
  4    0    5   CRC error in data field
  4    1    5   CRC error in data field
  5    0    5   CRC error in data field
  5    1    5   CRC error in data field
  6    0    5   CRC error in data field
(Further errors not printed.)

Admittedly the disks I've tried are a bit old, but it seems very strange that 
format fails while dd works..

Floppies do suck but some times they are like Obi Wan.. my only hope

:)

-- 
Daniel O'Connor software and network engineer
for Genesis Software - http://www.gsoft.com.au
"The nice thing about standards is that there
are so many of them to choose from."
  -- Andrew Tanenbaum
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