xref: /freebsd/usr.sbin/fdread/fdread.1 (revision 397e83df75e0fcd0d3fcb95ae4d794cb7600fc89)
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2.\" Copyright (c) 2001 Joerg Wunsch
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27.Dd May 14, 2001
28.Dt FDREAD 1
29.Os
30.Sh NAME
31.Nm fdread
32.Nd read floppy disks
33.Sh SYNOPSIS
34.Nm
35.Op Fl qr
36.Op Fl d Ar device
37.Op Fl f Ar fillbyte
38.Op Fl o Ar file
39.Nm
40.Op Fl d Ar device
41.Fl I Ar numsects
42.Op Fl t Ar trackno
43.Sh DESCRIPTION
44The
45.Nm
46utility reads floppy disks.
47Effective read blocking based on the track
48size is performed, and floppy-specific error recovery of otherwise
49bad blocks can be enabled.
50.Pp
51The
52.Nm
53utility
54will always read an entire floppy medium, and write its contents to
55the respective output file.
56Unlike other tools like
57.Xr dd 1 ,
58.Nm
59automatically uses a read block size that is more efficient than
60reading single blocks (usually one track of data at a time), but
61falls back to reading single floppy sectors in case of an input/output
62error occurred, in order to obtain as much valid data as possible.
63While
64.Nm
65is working, kernel error reporting for floppy errors is turned off, so
66the console and/or syslog are not flooded with kernel error messages.
67.Pp
68The
69.Nm
70utility accepts the following options:
71.Bl -tag -width indent
72.It Fl q
73Turn on quiet mode.
74By default, the medium parameters of the device
75are being written to standard error output, progress will be indicated
76by the approximate number of kilobytes read so far, and errors will be
77printed out in detail, including the information about the location of
78recovered data in the output.
79In quiet mode, none of these messages
80will be generated.
81.It Fl r
82Enable error recovery.
83By default,
84.Nm
85stops after the first unrecovered read error, much like
86.Xr dd 1
87does.
88In recovery mode, however, one of two recovery actions will be
89taken:
90.Bl -bullet
91.It
92If the error was a CRC error in the data field, the
93kernel is told to ignore the error, and data are transferred to the
94output file anyway.
95.Bf -emphasis
96Note that this will cause the erroneous data
97to be included in the output file!
98.Ef
99Still, this is the best recovery action that can be taken at all.
100.It
101All other errors are really fatal (usually, the FDC did not find the
102sector ID fields), thus a dummy block with fill
103bytes will be included in the output file.
104.El
105.Pp
106Unless operating in quiet mode, the action taken and the location of
107the error in the output file will be displayed.
108.It Fl d Ar device
109Specify the input floppy device, defaulting to
110.Pa /dev/fd0 .
111The parameter
112.Ar device
113must be a valid floppy disk device.
114.It Fl f Ar fillbyte
115Value of the fill byte used for dummy blocks in the output file in
116recovery mode.
117Defaults to
118.Ql 0xf0 .
119(Mnemonic:
120.Dq foo . )
121The value can be specified using the usual C language notation of
122the number base.
123.It Fl o Ar file
124Specify the output file to be
125.Ar file .
126By default, the data will be written to standard output.
127.It Fl I Ar numsects
128Read
129.Ar numsects
130sector ID fields, and write out their contents to standard output.
131Each sector ID field contains recorded values for the cylinder number
132.Pq Ql C ,
133the head number
134.Pq Ql H ,
135the record number (sector number starting with 1)
136.Pq Ql R ,
137and the
138.Em sector shift value
139(0 = 128 bytes, 1 = 256 bytes, 2 = 512 bytes, 3 = 1024 bytes)
140.Pq Ql N .
141The
142.Fl I
143option is mutually exclusive with all other options except
144.Fl d Ar device
145and
146.Fl t Ar trackno .
147.It Fl t Ar trackno
148Specify the track number (cylinder number * number of heads + head
149number) to read the sector ID fields from; only allowed together with
150the
151.Fl I Ar numsects
152option.
153.El
154.Sh FILES
155.Bl -tag -width /dev/fd0
156.It Pa /dev/fd0
157Default device to read from.
158.El
159.Sh EXIT STATUS
160The
161.Nm
162utility sets the exit value according to
163.Xr sysexits 3 .
164In recovery mode, the exit value will be set to
165.Dv EX_IOERR
166if any error occurred during processing (even in quiet mode).
167.Sh DIAGNOSTICS
168Unless running in quiet mode, upon encountering an error, the status
169of the floppy disc controller (FDC) will be printed out, both in
170hexadecimal form, followed by a textual description that translates
171those values into a human-readable form for the most common error
172cases that can happen in a PC environment.
173.Pp
174The FDC error status includes the three FDC status registers
175.Ql ST0 ,
176.Ql ST1 ,
177and
178.Ql ST2 ,
179as well as the location of the error (physical cylinder, head, and sector
180number, plus the
181.Dq sector shift value ,
182respectively).
183See the manual for the NE765 or compatible for details
184about the status register contents.
185.Pp
186The FDC's status is then examined to determine whether the error is
187deemed to be recoverable.
188If error recovery was requested, the
189location of the bad block in the output file is indicated by its
190(hexadecimal) bounds.
191Also, a summary line indicating the total number
192of transfer errors will be printed before exiting.
193.Sh SEE ALSO
194.Xr dd 1 ,
195.Xr fdwrite 1 ,
196.Xr sysexits 3 ,
197.Xr fdc 4 ,
198.Xr fdcontrol 8
199.Sh HISTORY
200The
201.Nm
202utility was written mainly to provide a means of recovering at least some of
203the data on bad media, and to obviate the need to invoke
204.Xr dd 1
205with too many hard to memorize options that might be useful to handle
206a floppy.
207.Pp
208The command appeared in
209.Fx 5.0 .
210.Sh AUTHORS
211Program and man page by
212.An J\(:org Wunsch .
213.Sh BUGS
214Concurrent traffic on the second floppy drive located at the same FDC
215will make error recovery attempts pointless, since the FDC status
216obtained after a read error occurred cannot be guaranteed to actually
217belong to the erroneous transfer.
218Thus using option
219.Fl r
220is only reliable if
221.Ar device
222is the only active drive on that controller.
223.Pp
224No attempt beyond the floppy error retry mechanism of
225.Xr fdc 4
226is made in order to see whether bad sectors could still be read
227without errors by trying multiple times.
228.Pp
229Bits that are (no longer) available on the floppy medium cannot be
230guessed by
231.Nm .
232