Re: Formatting a USB Floppy on Sony Vaio Z505JE.

Hi Andy,

> > OK, that sounds very logical, and obvious!  What are the standard HD
> > formatting tools?  sformat?  I know it's not mkdosfs, etc.
> 
> man mkfs :)  That should give you all the fs creation info you need
> with the exception of iso creation... but then again... why would you
> want to stick a CD-ROM image on a floppy *lol*

No, mkfs isn't relevant AIUI.  As I said in my original email, "I don't
mean write the filesystem data to it, but perform a `write track' in FDC
1772 terms."

The mkfs.* commands just write filesystem meta-data, e.g. superblock,
and root directory, to the blocks of an already formatted media.  For a
DOS floppy something, normally fdformat, has to use the FDC's `write
track' command to lay down nine 512-byte sectors per track, 80 tracks
per side, two sides.  Only then can the FDC be instructed to fetch bytes
from, e.g. sector 1.

If I take a HD floppy and use libdsk to format it as five 1024-byte
sectors per track, 80 tracks, double-sided, then I've formatted an Acorn
ADFS 800KB floppy.  It neds reformatting back to 720KB before it can be
understood once again as a DOS floppy.  After formatting, I can layout
some bytes *within* the sectors in a representation of a particular
filesystem.

Hope that makes the problem clearer,

Cheers,


Ralph.