OT: btld problem??

[Brian K. White]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "John Esak" <john at valar.com>
To: "Fplist (E-mail)" <filepro-list at seaslug.org>
Sent: Sunday, August 13, 2006 9:04 AM
Subject: RE: OT: btld problem??


>I hope not!  It is brand new USB drive.  It makes a nice sounding click 
>when
> accessed. :-)
>
> Don't know what's up, but I *have* to solve this today!!!
>
> John
>
>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: filepro-list-bounces+john=valar.com at lists.celestial.com
>> [mailto:filepro-list-bounces+john=valar.com at lists.celestial.com]On
>> Behalf Of Fairlight
>> Sent: Sunday, August 13, 2006 4:29 AM
>> To: Fplist (E-mail)
>> Subject: Re: OT: btld problem??
>>
>>
>> Bad floppy drive?
>>
>> mark->

Don't you have to do something more than usual for it to see the usb floppy?
Yes it partially sees it because the ldrive turns on, but that doesn't mean 
all parts of the process know about the unusual device.
Somewhere in there you have to specify that the drive is fd(64) (or whatever 
the number is) instead of the built in default 60 (or whatever the number 
is). You must have already done that to some extent in order to get as far 
as you are, but I'm thinking it just needs the same sort of override to be 
specified in even more places than you've already done. I don't have any 
idea what exactly you might have to do though and I don't think thats a 
problem either because I think this is the better advice:

Myself, I just plain don't use anything usb on 506. I doesn't matter that a 
minimum level of support supposedly exists after sufficient patching. I 
don't consider it a practical or viable facility in 506 in general. If it 
requires this much hassle to use, it's wrong to try and use it and then rely 
on it for anything important. It hinders and endangers emergency operations 
at the very least. Install a real floppy drive or install a different OS or 
don't use that server for that job. JP spent, how long?, getting 506 or 507 
loaded onto a compaq laptop a while back. That was a painful and time 
consuming experiment on a non-production personal laptop and thats about the 
only context that I'd consider trying to use usb on osr5 (even 507). Since 
you say you "must figure this out today" that doesn't sound like a 
non-production experiment box. His main problem I beleive was also needing 
to use a usb floppy, and he ended up having to burn his own customized 
install cd instead!

Also there is the fact that the usb drivers are notoriously flaky and 
problem ridden in both linux and freebsd, even today after usb has been 
around several years. A lot of things do work ok but a lot of things don't, 
others require manual hacking, others only work at a snails pace because of 
fundamental differences between the way Windows vs any-ix operates, others 
crash or hang the system due to interrupt storms or missed interrupts. 
Mostly these things get found out and fixes or work-arounds are out there to 
be googled up, but in my opinion there is a fundamental problem that this is 
just not robust stuff in general. Hardware or software. And there is 
practically no anecdotal experience out there about the usb drivers under 
osr5 but it is a fact that they appeared with 506 or rs506a and so they are 
brand new.

If it is even possible and you do figure it out, thats great since it's 
valuable knowledge. But I'd consider that knowledge to be something good to 
have in your toolbox to save your butt on that oddball unavoidable occasion. 
Not something you'd do given any choice. Good Luck.

Brian K. White  --  brian at aljex.com  --  http://www.aljex.com/bkw/
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