Re: [PATCHES] CD + extended floppy format

[Thierry Laronde]

On Tue, Oct 16, 2001 at 04:57:06AM +0800, Rogelio M. Serrano Jr.,,, wrote:
> Thierry Laronde wrote:
> 
> > On Mon, Oct 15, 2001 at 12:41:04PM +0200, Thierry Laronde wrote:
> > 
> >>> One problem I found is that the new function "disk_changed" cannot be
> >>> so simple. The reason is obvious, if you see the Ralf Brown's
> >>> Interrupt List. Here's the very part at which you should take a look:
> >> 
> >> I have worked with Ralf Brown's list too. My diagnostic is that this
> >> simple code should work 95% of time, and when it fails that simply
> >> creates a call to the diskinfo routines. So this should be OK to only
> >> return %ah, no need to bother with more --- at least for testing.
> > 
> > Precision, this is correct because only _floppy drives_ are tested: the
> > bugs mentionned by the list are for hard disk. If some day, a support
> > for arrays of disks, or special removable disks is needed, the routine
> > will have to be changed. But for now, IMHO, let's keep this simple.
> > 
> 
> Does this mean that i could boot off a 1.44M floppy on my 2.88M disk drive?

Yes, but this was (I guess) already the case with the previous versions,
since your BIOS tests first the maximum number of sectors (36), that
will fail, and then try 18, and sends this to the caller of the INT 13h
08h.

If this doesn't work (without doing something special), I will give you
the way [but this should work since the compatibility was preserved with
1.44M disk drive.

Cheers,
-- 
Thierry Laronde (Alceste) <address@hidden>
Key fingerprint = 0FF7 E906 FBAF FE95 FD89  250D 52B1 AE95 6006 F40C