Baslinux mailing list

[Sindi Keesan <keesan AT iamjlamb.com>]

On Sat, 31 Jul 2004 3aoo-cvfd AT dea.spamcon.org wrote:

> Sindi Keesan wrote:
> > 
> > I also have a floppy drive on a desktop that keeps telling 
> > me there are bad sectors on every disk.  Another computer 
> > formats them 100%.  Should I change the first drive to 
> > another?
> 
> I would.

We have about 20 extras and will try that, and check each drive on the 
floppy disk that this drive thought had 80 bad sectors.  

> 
> > I cannot replace the drive in this laptop, can I?  
> 
> Perhaps.  
> 
> > At least not without buying a new one.  

The one time we tried to replace a 286 laptop drive, the other one was too
large.  Do they come in many different sizes for 486 laptops?

> 
> I thought you had several dead laptops.  If you are lucky
> you might find one with a floppy drive you can use.  The
> problem with laptops is they are not easy to fix.  Getting
> at some components can be fiendishly difficult.  It's not
> worth killing a working laptop trying to install a new FD.

Probably no worse than fixing a small portabe tape deck or CD player.
My partner once repaired an XT floppy drive by replacing a belt in it.
Does the alignment go bad because parts wear out, or might it need 
cleaning or lubricating?
 
> > software test for alignment?  
> 
> Superformat (Linux) gives you an alignment reading when it 
> formats floppies.  I think it is available in Slackware.

Thanks.  We will test a bunch of floppy drives and keep the best ones 
rather than just recycling the ones that don't fit on the shelf.
What would a good or acceptible reading be?

> 
> > I got it working without that by typing cd /etc/pcmcia 
> > and then start. I don't see a PCMCIA line in /etc/rc in 
> > BL3-floppy.  
> 
> BL3-floppy runs in a ramdisk, so editing /etc/rc is pointless
> until you install it to HD.  IIRC install-to-hd creates an
> /etc/rc that includes the PCMCIA line.

That makes sense.

I have been copying over resolv.conf and eznet.conf from the second BL3 
disk and could do the same with rc on the computer without a working hard 
disk.  I don't think that your requirements for BL3 list a hard drive, 
just a motherboard, floppy drive and RAM (and video of course).  There is 
probably also some way to save changes to a new disk image (disk1.img).

> 
> Cheers,
> Steven
> 
> 
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