Re: [9fans] fd0!dos not a FAT filesystem?

Re: [9fans] fd0!dos not a FAT filesystem?

[John Stalker]

I also have a machine where plan9 produces this message during (attempted)
install.  The funny thing is I once installed plan9 on the same machine
with the same floppy drive, so I know the hardware hasn't changed.  That
was also 4th edition and I doubt the floppy driver code changes much, so
I would guess the software hasn't changed either.  No other OS has ever
had a problem with this drive.  I didn't investigate much, but I did think
about--and fail to try--the following solutions:
	1) Swap floppy drives.
	2) Put a spare hard drive into another machine where I have
	a working plan9, duplicate the installation, adjust for the
	video card and partitioning differences, and then move the
	hard drive over.
	3) Install to a file using bochs under FreeBSD on the same machine,
	and then dd the file to a partition on the hard disk.  I actually
	got fairly far along in this one.  The install floppy causes an
	exception in bochs and bochs offers to die.  If you decide to ignore
	the exception then everything is fine, except that the video card is
	not recognized--no surprise--so you need to do a text install.  This
	would presumably work better in vmware, but I am too cheap to buy it.
	Bochs is painfully slow.  My 800MHz K7 acts like a 4MHz Pentium.  For
	this reason I gave up in mid-install, but I believe it would have
	worked, if I had been more patient.
	4) Debug the floppy driver.  This would have been hard both because
	I don't really know what I'm doing and because you are at such an
	early stage in the bootstrap that there are no tools available.
One final thought:  Maybe the hardware isn't exactly the same as when I
installed successfully.  I have an SCSI adapter on the machine.  That
hasn't changed.  I do have a new SCSI hard disk, though.  It's a long shot,
but you might try pulling the adapter and seeing if plan9 can now read the
floppy.  If that works please let me know.
--
John Stalker
Department of Mathematics
Princeton University
(609)258-6469

Re: [9fans] fd0!dos not a FAT filesystem? [SOLUTION]

[Douglas A. Gwyn]

Turns out that disabling the second 3.5" FDD in the BIOS
straightened out the Plan 9 installation boot floppy.
I noticed that the second drive motor came on just
before the problem, perhaps probing for drives followed
by a failure to select the original drive again when it
was time to use it further..
Followup-To:
Distribution:
Organization: University of Bath Computing Services, UK
Keywords:
Cc:


--
Dennis Davis, BUCS, University of Bath, Bath, BA2 7AY, UK
D.H.Davis@bath.ac.uk

Re: [9fans] fd0!dos not a FAT filesystem?

[Andrew]

I had a similiar problem, turned out to be the floppy disk i was
using. I used a new boot disk and everything was fine.

On Fri, Jun 06, 2003 at 09:12:15AM +0000, news.verizon.net wrote:
> Floppy images I downloaded in the past couple of days produce the subject
> diagnostic right after finding the 53C810 SCSI adapter (I also have IDE
> disks).  I have both 3.5" floppy drives attached.  The images have passed
> Windows CheckDisk testing etc.
> So how can I get Plan 9 installed?  Do I have to unplug a floppy drive or
> what?

Re: [9fans] fd0!dos not a FAT filesystem?

[steve.simon]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 347 bytes --]

Hi.

I just downloaded a boot floppy to install another
machine last night and it booted fine, so I don't
think the install floppy is broken.

However I have seen funnies in tha past with floppies not being
recognised - usually with very old hardware, perhaps one of the
floppy timeouts is a bit conservative?

Just guessing...

-Steve

[-- Attachment #2: Type: message/rfc822, Size: 836 bytes --]

From: 9fans@cse.psu.edu
To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu
Subject: [9fans] fd0!dos not a FAT filesystem?
Date: Fri, 06 Jun 2003 10:12:15 +0100
Message-ID: <3523931878@snellwilcox.com>

Floppy images I downloaded in the past couple of days produce the subject
diagnostic right after finding the 53C810 SCSI adapter (I also have IDE
disks).  I have both 3.5" floppy drives attached.  The images have passed
Windows CheckDisk testing etc.
So how can I get Plan 9 installed?  Do I have to unplug a floppy drive or
what?

[9fans] fd0!dos not a FAT filesystem?

[news.verizon.net]

Floppy images I downloaded in the past couple of days produce the subject
diagnostic right after finding the 53C810 SCSI adapter (I also have IDE
disks).  I have both 3.5" floppy drives attached.  The images have passed
Windows CheckDisk testing etc.
So how can I get Plan 9 installed?  Do I have to unplug a floppy drive or
what?