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From: Haines Brown on 6 Sep 2005 15:16
Additional information.

I pulled things apart and substituted another floppy drive, but
results the same:

1. Bootable floppy in drive ignored by BIOS
2. Once booted, a mount of the floppy hangs and returns I/O errors:

kernel: end_request: I/O error, dev fd0, sector 0
kernel: Buffer I/O error on device fd0, logical block 0

Here I should get "Root device; boot device", but instead get:

# rdev /dev/fd0
/dev/fd0: Input/output error

In dmesg, I get:

$ dmesg | grep fd0
Floppy drive(s): fd0 is 1.44M
end_request: I/O error, dev fd0, sector 0
end_request: I/O error, dev fd0, sector 0
Buffer I/O error on device fd0, logical block 0
end_request: I/O error, dev fd0, sector 0
Buffer I/O error on device fd0, logical block 0
end_request: I/O error, dev fd0, sector 0
end_request: I/O error, dev fd0, sector 0
...

Does this suggest the hardware is seen, but the disk it holds is
inaccessible? I naturally worry about my BIOS setup (I'm not familiar
with the newer BIOS nor the Award BIOS).

PnP O/S: no
Resources controlled by: auto
Function setup:
OnChip IEchannel0: enabled
OnChip IEchannel1: enabled
[I'm not sure what these are? I'm using an offboard NIC and sound
card, and disable both in BIOS:]
IDE Prefetch mode: enabled
Onboard NV lan: disabled
AC97 audio: disabled
PEG Luke mode: auto

API suspect type: S1&S3
ACPI support: enabled
APM Configuration:
APM: restore on power loss: disabled

Boot: device priority: 1 removable, 2 cdrmo, 3 hard disk
Bot: CDROM drives: 1 TEAC, 2 Toshiba (even though TEAC is secondary
master and Toshiba is primary master).
Bootup floppy test if 20 or 80 tracks: enabled

If I enable this last item, I hang and get "floppy disks
fail". Probably significant, but I don't know how to interpret. If I
disable the test, the boot gets by the floppy.

The only other hardware anomaly is that while my scsi adapter setup
can scan its bus and see the hard disk, the scisi bus scan that
displays during boot shows nothing (nor an external scsi device).

I have not tried swapping the data cable, that's an obvious thing to
do if a problem with it would show the symptoms above.

--

Haines Brown
KB1GRM
From: chuck on 6 Sep 2005 23:50
Haines Brown <brownh(a)teufel.hartford-hwp.com> wrote in
news:87fysiovkt.fsf(a)teufel.hartford-hwp.com:

> Additional information.
>
> I pulled things apart and substituted another floppy drive, but
> results the same:
>
> 1. Bootable floppy in drive ignored by BIOS
> 2. Once booted, a mount of the floppy hangs and returns I/O errors:
>
> kernel: end_request: I/O error, dev fd0, sector 0
> kernel: Buffer I/O error on device fd0, logical block 0
>
> Here I should get "Root device; boot device", but instead get:
>
> # rdev /dev/fd0
> /dev/fd0: Input/output error
>
> In dmesg, I get:
>
> $ dmesg | grep fd0
> Floppy drive(s): fd0 is 1.44M
> end_request: I/O error, dev fd0, sector 0
> end_request: I/O error, dev fd0, sector 0
> Buffer I/O error on device fd0, logical block 0
> end_request: I/O error, dev fd0, sector 0
> Buffer I/O error on device fd0, logical block 0
> end_request: I/O error, dev fd0, sector 0
> end_request: I/O error, dev fd0, sector 0
> ...
>
> Does this suggest the hardware is seen, but the disk it holds is
> inaccessible? I naturally worry about my BIOS setup (I'm not familiar
> with the newer BIOS nor the Award BIOS).
>
> PnP O/S: no
> Resources controlled by: auto
> Function setup:
> OnChip IEchannel0: enabled
> OnChip IEchannel1: enabled
> [I'm not sure what these are? I'm using an offboard NIC and sound
> card, and disable both in BIOS:]
> IDE Prefetch mode: enabled
> Onboard NV lan: disabled
> AC97 audio: disabled
> PEG Luke mode: auto
>
> API suspect type: S1&S3
> ACPI support: enabled
> APM Configuration:
> APM: restore on power loss: disabled
>
> Boot: device priority: 1 removable, 2 cdrmo, 3 hard disk
> Bot: CDROM drives: 1 TEAC, 2 Toshiba (even though TEAC is secondary
> master and Toshiba is primary master).
> Bootup floppy test if 20 or 80 tracks: enabled
>
> If I enable this last item, I hang and get "floppy disks
> fail". Probably significant, but I don't know how to interpret. If I
> disable the test, the boot gets by the floppy.

> The only other hardware anomaly is that while my scsi adapter setup
> can scan its bus and see the hard disk, the scisi bus scan that
> displays during boot shows nothing (nor an external scsi device).
>
> I have not tried swapping the data cable, that's an obvious thing to
> do if a problem with it would show the symptoms above.
>
have you tried formatting a floppy in the drive? if same results, try
replacing cable/checking it's properly plugged in at both ends/power to
plug to floppy. If none of the above help, I would say it's the controller
card/chip - try a ide pci card and disable onboard.
From: Haines Brown on 7 Sep 2005 16:49
chuck <chuck(a)nil.car> writes:

> Haines Brown <brownh(a)teufel.hartford-hwp.com> wrote in
> news:87fysiovkt.fsf(a)teufel.hartford-hwp.com:
>
>> Additional information.
>>
>> I pulled things apart and substituted another floppy drive, but
>> results the same:
>>
>> 1. Bootable floppy in drive ignored by BIOS
>> 2. Once booted, a mount of the floppy hangs and returns I/O
>> errors:
>>
>> kernel: end_request: I/O error, dev fd0, sector 0
>> kernel: Buffer I/O error on device fd0, logical block 0
>>
>> Here I should get "Root device; boot device", but instead get:
>>
>> # rdev /dev/fd0
>> /dev/fd0: Input/output error
>> I have not tried swapping the data cable, that's an obvious thing
>> to do if a problem with it would show the symptoms above.
>>
> have you tried formatting a floppy in the drive? if same results,
> try replacing cable/checking it's properly plugged in at both
> ends/power to plug to floppy. If none of the above help, I would say
> it's the controller card/chip - try a ide pci card and disable
> onboard.

Well, much of the problem was the data cable to the floppy
drive. Much to my surprise (ignorance, probably), the pin1 orientation
on my cable was the opposite side in relation to the plug key. I don't
know if that is a manufacturing mistake, or not all floppy drive
cables can be used on all floppy drives. When I fished out a cable
with the pin 1 on the other side, that solved part of the problem, but
not the major problem.

Now when I boot, the floppy drive is not skipped, but is accessed. On
a floppy with a grub boot loader, at least Loading Stage2... shows
up. However, the grub loader does not perform as it did before, and I
only get the grub> prompt, and I can't seem to be able to use it to
find my kernel etc. So back to remaking some boot floppies.

Other than this, I can now access a floppy with such as fdformat, and
I can mount them, etc.

Thanks for your input. If you have any reflections on my comments
about floppy drive cable "polarity", I'd appreciate knowing of them.

--

Haines Brown
KB1GRM
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