Re: Nonstandard low-level formats and USB floppy drives (is linux capable?)

From: prg (rdgentry1_at_cablelynx.com)
Date: 02/11/05 

Date: 11 Feb 2005 14:56:51 -0800

Dances With Crows wrote:
[snip]
> I checked pricewatch.com for "USB floppy" and found that those drives
> with specs listed said "1.44M, 1.25M, and 720K capacity". It's
possible
> that the drives' firmware is set up such that they only grok the
common
> formats. <sarcasm>Wonderful.</sarcasm>
[snip]

Think you may be correct about this :(

Reminded me of problems with Zip drives I looked into last year(?) but
couldn't find anything immediately useful.

But.. getting really creative using google search of:
linux + "usb floppy" + "low level format"

I turned up this item of possible interest:
http://www.geocities.jp/tedi_world/format_usbfdd_e.html

and using this search (from a dead link):
scsifmt.c
I turned up this:
http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/system/hardware/scsifmt.c

Does scsi format a device only, ie., the scsifmt.c code uses the
FORMAT_UNIT (04h) command to format a device?

The first link code actually uses USB:
/* UFI format data */
#define BLOCK 2880 /* sectors per disk */
#define BLOCK_SIZE 512 /* bytes per sector */

Googling:
USB UFI format data
turns up a UFI Command Specification -- in .pdf
http://www.usb.org/developers/devclass_docs/usbmass-ufi10.pdf
[q]
4.1 FORMAT UNIT Command: 04h
The Host sends the FORMAT UNIT command to physically format one track
of a diskette according to the selected options.
[eq]

Perhaps modify ufiformat.c from the first link?

That's all I have time for. Day's work done and it's Friday ;-)

hth,
prg (curious interloper)
email above disabled

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