Need help *fast*

Ted Mittelstaedt tedm at toybox.placo.com
Mon Dec 27 20:21:10 PST 2004



> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-freebsd-questions at freebsd.org
> [mailto:owner-freebsd-questions at freebsd.org]On Behalf Of Nikolas Britton
> Sent: Monday, December 27, 2004 7:08 PM
> To: Broder Mizzérable
> Cc: freebsd-questions at freebsd.org
> Subject: Re: Need help *fast*
>
>
> Broder Mizzérable wrote:
>
> > Hello there.. i'm switching to FreeBSD ' now '... i did try to use the
> > floppy installation way. but it seems like all my floppy's are 50kb to
> > small =/ ... so i was wondering .. is it possible to use a CD ' That
> > does already has stuffs on it but still boot it and download FTP wise
> > .. as you would do as on the floppy installation ... i do ask this cuz
> > i dont have any free CD's atm ..
> >
> I'm not quite following what you mean? You tried the standard tools to
> make the floppy's, like rawrite and dd? AND you did format these disk
> before hand to check that they didn't have bad sectors?.... I have a big
> box of floppy's that have been siting in the closet and every time I
> need one I have to go through 20 or so bad ones that have bad sectors or
> invalid media to find the one perfect one. floppy diskettes are junk
> thats why we stopped using them.
>

No, floppy diskettes are definitely not junk, there is nothing wrong
with the medium except that it doesen't hold enough.

I used to work at a large software developer, Symantec formerly Central
Point Software (ie: PCTools)  The last floppy runs of PCTools had at
least 20 5.25 diskettes and about 15 3.5 floppies and Central Point
did their own duplicating.  There was no way in hell that floppies
that were anywhere near as bad as you imply could have been used for
commercial duplication, the reject rate would have been too high.

The problem today is that the floppy diskettes you buy in the
store today are not manufactured under the high tolerances that
they are supposed to be, and the floppy disk drives are also
slopped together.  I don't know how the commercial duplicators
do it if any are still doing floppy runs, probably none are
anymore.  My guess is the few people still manufacturing them are
using old ratty equipment that probably should have been retired
years ago.

Ted



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