Floppy disks don't work with FreeBSD 9.0

[Thomas Laus]

> uname -a
> FreeBSD elg.hjerdalen.lokalnett 8.3-PRERELEASE FreeBSD 8.3-PRERELEASE #42: Sat
> Mar  3 20:05:21 CET 2012    
> rumrunner at elg.hjerdalen.lokalnett:/usr/obj/usr/src/sys/RUM  amd64
> 
> fdformat works fine here with:
> dmesg |grep fdc
> fdc0: <floppy drive controller (FDE)> port 0x3f0-0x3f5,0x3f7 irq 6 drq 2 on
> acpi0 fdc0: [FILTER] fd0: <1440-KB 3.5" drive> on fdc0 drive 0
> 
> Using the disk normally also works.
>
I also had floppy disk success with FreeBSD 8.3 RC1.  I was able to format 
the floppy without error and DD a small file to the recently formatted floppy 
disk.

I re-initialized the same computer that had been running OpenBSD 5.1 and 
FreeBSD 8.3 RC1 and then did a fresh install of FreeBSD 9.0 Release.

FreeBSD 9.0-RELEASE:

Mar 27 12:12:59 kernel: real memory  = 536805376 (511 MB)
Mar 27 12:12:59 kernel: avail memory = 515719168 (491 MB)
Mar 27 12:12:59 kernel: fd0: <1440-KB 3.5" drive> on fdc0 drive 0

The fdformat shows the entire floppy disk that I previously used as having 
all blocks marked bad with a whole string of 'wrong cylinder (format 
mismatch) errors.

> Additionally, I tried to mount a DD disk (previously formatted and with
> files on), which also worked without hassle. I remember back on 6.X
> or 7.X, I found no other way to make DD disks work after having read/written
> HD disks than using fdformat -f720 on a disk first. Then again, that was on
> different hardware, so it may have other reasons.
> 
> I have an old machine I could install 9.0 on in order to test there, but
> I'd have to install that machine from floppy and I can't seem to
> find images for that any more. If it's of interest, I could probably
> find another machine to install on, then move the harddrive to the other
> machine, but I'd need to some for that.
> 
It looks like we both have confirmed that the floppy disk operation works up 
to FreeBSD 8.3 RC1.  I will need to file a PR for FreeBSD 9.0 in the bug 
system.

Thanks for the help.

Tom

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