Subject: Re: Jaz Floopy drive
To: Claude Foley <Cfoley01@cns.em.eds.com>
From: der Mouse <mouse@Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA>
List: port-sun3
Date: 02/20/1998 13:27:21
> I just bought a Jaz 1GB floppy drive

I'm not sure I'd call a jaz a "floppy".  Be that as it may....

> and I'm currently using NetBSD-1.1 on a SUN 3/60.

Oog.  Why are you using NetBSD as old as 1.1?  (Because that's what
you've got on it, I suppose....)

> When I boot I have a message that it used fictitious geometry and
> since I bought a used Jaz drive I don't know the geometry.

It doesn't matter; ignore those messages.  They simply mean that the
drive does not respond to MODE SENSE page 4 (and 5? I forget when that
change went in).  I think 1.3 doesn't even bother printing the message,
though I haven't tried my zip drive (a zip drive similarly fails to
support those mode sense pages) on a post-1.3 machine yet.

> if somebody knows the geometry of the Jaz drive I would like to have
> that information

Don't worry about it; put anything you like in the geometry fields of
the label.  The sectors-per-track value *surely* varies with cylinder
number, and if so it simply is not possible to accurately describe the
disk.  The only problem is noise messages on the console.  (Personally,
I've taken to labeling _all_ disks with labels claiming 1M cylinders.
Makes a number of things easier.)

> I'm planning to get NetBSD-1.3 but my access to Internet is via a PC
> with Windows 95.

Ouch.  My sympathies.

> So I will have to download to the PC and after that to download to my
> SUN, I need hint on the best way to download from PC to SUN
> (NetBSD-1.1) over RS232.

How is the Windows machine connected to the net?  Why can't you just
connect the -3/60 up in its place?  As for transferring from Windows to
your Sun, if Windows can be persuaded to do it, you could set up a ppp
link between the two; if not, well, I suppose you could always use
something like kermit and uuencode, though error correction becomes an
issue then.

					der Mouse

			       mouse@rodents.montreal.qc.ca
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