NetBSD Problem Report #45306

From www@NetBSD.org  Mon Aug 29 11:52:25 2011
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Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2011 11:52:24 +0000 (UTC)
From: Georg.Brein@unibas.ch
Reply-To: Georg.Brein@unibas.ch
To: gnats-bugs@NetBSD.org
Subject: Formatting a floppy doesn't work on SparcStation 2 under NetBSD 5.1
X-Send-Pr-Version: www-1.0

>Number:         45306
>Category:       port-sparc
>Synopsis:       Formatting a floppy doesn't work on SparcStation 2 under NetBSD 5.1
>Confidential:   no
>Severity:       non-critical
>Priority:       medium
>Responsible:    port-sparc-maintainer
>State:          open
>Class:          sw-bug
>Submitter-Id:   net
>Arrival-Date:   Mon Aug 29 11:55:00 +0000 2011
>Last-Modified:  Tue Aug 30 12:45:01 +0000 2011
>Originator:     Georg Brein
>Release:        NetBSD 5.1 sparc
>Organization:
University of Basel/Switzerland
>Environment:
NetBSD se-zulu.psycho.unibas.ch 5.1 NetBSD 5.1 (GENERIC) #0: Sat Nov  6 18:44:40 UTC 2010  builds@b6.netbsd.org:/home/builds/ab/netbsd-5-1-RELEASE/sparc/201011061943Z-obj/home/builds/ab/netbsd-5-1-RELEASE/src/sys/arch/sparc/compile/GENERIC sparc

The SparcStation 2 has firmware revision 2.9 (AFAIK the latest and greatest).
>Description:
Formatting a floppy disk on the internal FD drive of a SparcStation 2
produces verify errors and the resulting disk is unusable unless reformatted on another system:

root@se-zulu:~ # fdformat           
Ready to format /dev/rfd0a with 80 cylinders, 2 tracks, 18 sectors of 512 bytes
(1440 KB) Yes/no [y]?y
Formatting track 0 / head 0 - VERIFY ERROR
Formatting track 0 / head 1 - VERIFY ERROR
Formatting track 1 / head 0 - VERIFY ERROR
Formatting track 1 / head 1 - VERIFY ERROR
Formatting track 2 / head 0 - VERIFY ERROR
<one line per track>
Formatting track 78 / head 0 - VERIFY ERROR
Formatting track 78 / head 1 - VERIFY ERROR
Formatting track 79 / head 0 - VERIFY ERROR
Formatting track 79 / head 1 - VERIFY ERROR
Formatting 160 tracks total complete.
fdformat: 160 track formatting errors

Turning off verification (fdformat -n) suppresses the error messages, but the resulting floppies equally exhibit read and write errors around (but not always on) block 14 while trying to write or read using dd on the raw device and a block size of 512 bytes.

The floppy in question is physically o.k. (tested on a Linux box) and all other floppies meet the same difficulties. Formatting and using the same floppies on the same hardware under Solaris (2.5.1) works flawlessly, so a hardware error is unlikely, either.

Using floppies formatted on another system poses no problem; the difficulties are limited to the formatting process.
>How-To-Repeat:
Boot generic kernel on SparcStation 2; put floppy disk (1440 KB) into floppy drive; execute "fdformat".
>Fix:
Only a workaround: format your floppies on another computer :-)

>Audit-Trail:
From: Marc Balmer <marc@msys.ch>
To: gnats-bugs@NetBSD.org
Cc: 
Subject: Re: port-sparc/45306: Formatting a floppy doesn't work on SparcStation
 2 under NetBSD 5.1
Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2011 14:12:31 +0200

 Am 29.08.11 13:55, schrieb Georg.Brein@unibas.ch:
 >> Number:         45306
 >> Category:       port-sparc
 >> Synopsis:       Formatting a floppy doesn't work on SparcStation 2 under NetBSD 5.1
 >> Confidential:   no
 >> Severity:       non-critical
 >> Priority:       medium
 >> Responsible:    port-sparc-maintainer
 >> State:          open
 >> Class:          sw-bug
 >> Submitter-Id:   net
 >> Arrival-Date:   Mon Aug 29 11:55:00 +0000 2011
 >> Originator:     Georg Brein
 >> Release:        NetBSD 5.1 sparc
 >> Organization:
 > University of Basel/Switzerland
 >> Environment:
 > NetBSD se-zulu.psycho.unibas.ch 5.1 NetBSD 5.1 (GENERIC) #0: Sat Nov  6 18:44:40 UTC 2010  builds@b6.netbsd.org:/home/builds/ab/netbsd-5-1-RELEASE/sparc/201011061943Z-obj/home/builds/ab/netbsd-5-1-RELEASE/src/sys/arch/sparc/compile/GENERIC sparc
 > 
 > The SparcStation 2 has firmware revision 2.9 (AFAIK the latest and greatest).
 >> Description:
 > Formatting a floppy disk on the internal FD drive of a SparcStation 2
 > produces verify errors and the resulting disk is unusable unless reformatted on another system:
 > 
 > root@se-zulu:~ # fdformat           
 > Ready to format /dev/rfd0a with 80 cylinders, 2 tracks, 18 sectors of 512 bytes
 > (1440 KB) Yes/no [y]?y
 > Formatting track 0 / head 0 - VERIFY ERROR
 > Formatting track 0 / head 1 - VERIFY ERROR
 > Formatting track 1 / head 0 - VERIFY ERROR
 > Formatting track 1 / head 1 - VERIFY ERROR
 > Formatting track 2 / head 0 - VERIFY ERROR
 > <one line per track>
 > Formatting track 78 / head 0 - VERIFY ERROR
 > Formatting track 78 / head 1 - VERIFY ERROR
 > Formatting track 79 / head 0 - VERIFY ERROR
 > Formatting track 79 / head 1 - VERIFY ERROR
 > Formatting 160 tracks total complete.
 > fdformat: 160 track formatting errors
 > 
 > Turning off verification (fdformat -n) suppresses the error messages, but the resulting floppies equally exhibit read and write errors around (but not always on) block 14 while trying to write or read using dd on the raw device and a block size of 512 bytes.
 > 
 > The floppy in question is physically o.k. (tested on a Linux box) and all other floppies meet the same difficulties. Formatting and using the same floppies on the same hardware under Solaris (2.5.1) works flawlessly, so a hardware error is unlikely, either.
 > 
 > Using floppies formatted on another system poses no problem; the difficulties are limited to the formatting process.
 >> How-To-Repeat:
 > Boot generic kernel on SparcStation 2; put floppy disk (1440 KB) into floppy drive; execute "fdformat".
 >> Fix:
 > Only a workaround: format your floppies on another computer :-)

 Did you try if NetBSD-current can format a floppy disk on that machine?
  If not, can you try it, please?


From: Georg Brein <Georg.Brein@unibas.ch>
To: gnats-bugs@NetBSD.org
Cc: 
Subject: Re: port-sparc/45306: Formatting a floppy doesn't work on SparcStation 2 under NetBSD 5.1
Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2011 13:15:41 +0200

 [...]

 > Did you try if NetBSD-current can format a floppy disk on that  
 > machine?
 >  If not, can you try it, please?

 NetBSD-current (I just tried it with build 201108290810Z) shows exactly
 the same behaviour: formatting fails, but already formatted disks can be
 read from and written to.

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