fdrawcmd
is used to send raw commands to the floppy disk controller, after
having selected a given drive. You must have write permission to the
selected drive.
When writing to a disk, data is read from stdin; when reading, data
is printed to stdout. Diagnostic messages, return values from the
controller, and the value of the disk change line after the command are
printed to stderr.
Options
All numbers may be given in octal (0211), decimal (137), or hexadecimal
(0x89).
drive=drive
Selects the drive. The default is drive 0 ( (if/dev/fd0(is).
rate=rate
Selects the data transfer rate. Use 0 for high density disks, 1 for
double density 5 1/4 disks (or 2 Mbps tapes, if the appropriate rate
table is selected), and 2 for double density 3 1/2 disks.
length=length
Describes the length of the transferred data for commands reading from
and writing to the disk. The default is to continue until end of file.
repeat=count
Repeat the command count times. This only works correctly for
commands which don't do any data transfer.
cylinder=count
Seek to the given cylinder before executing the command
command
The name of the command to send. command may be a spelled out
name (like read or write), or a number representing the
commands floppy disk controller opcode. A named command has already a
mode associated with it, whereas for a number the mode parameter should
be described using the mode option.
parameters
The parameters for the command (optional, not all commands need
parameters).
mode
Various flags or'ed together describing the properties of the command.
Commands
The description of the various floppy commands given in this manpage is
very sketchy. For more details get the 82078 spec sheet which can be
found at:
Look for the chapter COMMAND SET/DESCRIPTIONS. Older FDCs only
support a subset of the commands described therein, but the syntax for
the commands that do exist is the same.
Commands available on all FDCs
read drvsel cyl head sect szcod spt rw-gap szcod2
Reads length bytes of data from the disk. drvsel is the
drive selector. Bit 0 and 1 describe the drive, and bit 2 describes the
head. The remaining parameters give the cylinder, head (yes, again),
sector, size of the sector (128 * 2 ^ szcod), sectors per track
( spt, this is used to switch to the second head when the first
side has been read), and size of the read-write gap. szcod2 should
be 0xff. read returns ST0 ST1 ST2 and cyl head sect
szcod of the next sector to be read; see
(if/usr/include/linux/fdreg.h(is .
N.B. Certain newer floppy disk controllers are buggy, and do not
correctly recognize the end of transfer when operating in virtual DMA
mode. For these, you need to set spt to the id of the last
sector to be read (for example, if you intend to read sectors 2, 3, 4,
set spt to 4, even if the disk has more sectors), and set the
no-mt flag.
write drvsel cyl head sect szcod spt rw-gap szcod2
Analogous to
read.
sense drvsel
Returns the third status byte (ST3)
recalibrate drvsel
Recalibrates the drive and returns ST0 ST1.
seek drvsel cyl
Moves the head to cyl and returns ST0 ST1.
specify drvsel spec1 spec2
Specify various parameters to the drive.
format drvsel szcod sect-per-track fmt-gap fmt-fill
Formats the cylinder. The new sectors are filled with fmt-fill.
The header information comes from the input, which is made up of
cyl head sect szcod quadruples. The szcod parameter
from the command line is used to describe the actual size of the
sectors, and the szcod from the input is used to write into the
header. However, the first write to these sectors will use the header
information, and might overwrite the following sectors if the
szcod parameter from the command line was too small.
readid drvsel
reads the first sector header that comes and returns
ST0 ST1 ST2
and
cyl head sect szcod
of the encountered header.
Commands available on 82072 and later
dumpregs
Prints the contents of the FDCs registers, if supported.
Commands available on 82072A and later
configure conf1 conf2 conf3
Configures FIFO operation.
Commands available on 82077 and later
version
Echoes 0x90 if the FDC is more recent than 82072A, and 0x80 otherwise
perpendicular rate
Sets the perpendicular mode. Use 0 for normal, 2 for 500kb/s
perpendicular, and 3 for 1 Mb/s perpendicular.
seek-out drvsel n
does a relative seek of
n
cylinders towards cylinder 0.
seek-in drvsel n
does a relative seek of n cylinders away from cylinder 0.
Commands available on 82077AA and later
lock
Locks the FIFO configuration, so that it survives a FDC software reset.
unlock
Unlock the FIFO configuration
Commands available on 82078
partid
echoes a byte describing the type of the FDC in the 3 high bits, and
the stepping in the three low bits.
powerdown powerconf
configures automatic power down of the FDC. The old configuration is echoed
option iso
enables/disables ISO formats. Odd values of
iso
enable these formats, whereas even values disable them. ISO formats
don't have index headers, and thus allow to fit slightly more data on
a disk.
formats the cylinder and writes initial data to it. The input data is
made up of a sequence of headers (4 bytes) and data:
header1 data1 header2 data2 ... headern datan
drivespec dspec1 dspec2 ... specn terminator
chooses rate tables for various drives. Each dspec byte describes one
drive. Bits 0 and 1 say which drive is described. Bits 2 and 3 describe
the rate table. Only tables 0 and 2 are interesting. Both tables only
differ in the meaning og rate 1. For table 0 (the default) rate 0 is 300
kb/s (used for 5 1/4 DD disks), whereas for table 1 it is 2 Mbps (used
for fast floppy tape drives). Bit 4 is the precompensation table select
bit. It should be set to 0. Bit 5-7 should be zero as well. The
terminator byte ends the drivespec command. It is either
0xc0 or 0x80. If it is 0xc0, no result phase follows; if it is 0x80, the
current data rate table configuration for the four drives is echoed.
Modes
The mode option is only needed when you describe the command as a
numerical value. Some mode names are also valid command names. They
are considered as command name if the command name has not yet been
given, and as mode name otherwise.
If you give a command name followed by explicit modes, both the
implicit flags of the command name, and the explicit modes are or'ed
together.
If on the other hand you give a command name preceded by explicit
modes, only the explicit modes are or'ed together.
read
Read data from disk using DMA.
write
Write data to the disk.
intr
Wait for an interrupt.
spin
wait for the disk to spin up
disk
Aborts the operation if no disk is in the drive. This only works if you
also chose a physical cylinder to seek to.
no-motor
Don't switch on the drive motor while issuing the command
no-motor-after
Switch off the motor immediately after the command returns.
fm
Uses the FM version of the read, readid, write and
format commands.
no-mt
Do not use MT (multitrack) mode for the read, readid and
write commands. This is needed on certain broken FDC's which
don't recognize end of transfer when running in nodma mode. In
order to use these safely, set no-mt, and chose the id of the
last sector to be read as sect-per-track.
fdrawcmd opens the device node with the NDELAY flag. This
means that the driver should not try to autodetect the disk type (it
might not be formatted), and that it should not reset the FDC. If a
reset was needed, the command simply fails. If that happens, execute
floppycontrol --resetnow 0 , and try again.
Note
This manpage has been automatically generated from fdutils's texinfo
documentation. Some information may be lost during this process.
