xref: /freebsd/usr.sbin/fdread/fdread.1 (revision b52b9d56d4e96089873a75f9e29062eec19fabba)
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2.\" Copyright (c) 2001 Joerg Wunsch
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26.\" $FreeBSD$
27.\"
28.\"
29.Dd May 14, 2001
30.Os
31.Dt FDREAD 1
32.Sh NAME
33.Nm fdread
34.Nd read floppy disks
35.Sh SYNOPSIS
36.Nm
37.Op Fl qr
38.Op Fl d Ar device
39.Op Fl f Ar fillbyte
40.Op Fl o Ar file
41.Nm
42.Op Fl d Ar device
43.Fl I Ar numsects
44.Op Fl t Ar trackno
45.Sh DESCRIPTION
46The
47.Nm
48utility reads floppy disks.  Effective read blocking based on the track
49size is performed, and floppy-specific error recovery of otherwise
50bad blocks can be enabled.
51.Pp
52The
53.Nm
54utility
55will always read an entire floppy medium, and write its contents to
56the respective output file.  Unlike 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.  By default, the medium parameters of the device
74are being written to standard error output, progress will be indicated
75by the approximate number of kilobytes read so far, and errors will be
76printed out in detail, including the information about the location of
77recovered data in the output.  In quiet mode, none of these messages
78will be generated.
79.It Fl r
80Enable error recovery.  By default,
81.Nm
82stops after the first unrecovered read error, much like
83.Xr dd 1
84does.  In recovery mode, however, one of two recovery actions will be
85taken:
86.Bl -bullet
87.It
88If the error was a CRC error in the data field, the
89kernel is told to ignore the error, and data are transferred to the
90output file anyway.
91.Bf -emphasis
92Note that this will cause the erroneous data
93to be included in the output file!
94.Ef
95Still, this is the best recovery action that can be taken at all.
96.It
97All other errors are really fatal (usually, the FDC didn't find the
98sector ID fields), thus a dummy block with fill
99bytes will be included in the output file.
100.El
101.Pp
102Unless operating in quiet mode, the action taken and the location of
103the error in the output file will be displayed.
104.It Fl d Ar device
105Specify the input floppy device, defaulting to
106.Pa /dev/fd0 .
107The parameter
108.Ar device
109must be a valid floppy disk device.
110.It Fl f Ar fillbyte
111Value of the fill byte used for dummy blocks in the output file in
112recovery mode.  Defaults to
113.Ql 0xf0 .
114(Mnemonic:
115.Dq foo . )
116The value can be specified using the usual C language notation of
117the number base.
118.It Fl o Ar file
119Specify the output file to be
120.Ar file .
121By default, the data will be written to standard output.
122.It Fl I Ar numsects
123Read
124.Ar numsects
125sector ID fields, and write out their contents to standard output.
126Each sector ID field contains recorded values for the cylinder number
127.Pq Ql C ,
128the head number
129.Pq Ql H ,
130the record number (sector number starting with 1)
131.Pq Ql R ,
132and the
133.Em sector shift value
134(0 = 128 bytes, 1 = 256 bytes, 2 = 512 bytes, 3 = 1024 bytes)
135.Pq Ql N .
136The
137.Fl I
138option is mutually exclusive with all other options except
139.Fl d Ar device
140and
141.Fl t Ar trackno .
142.It Fl t Ar trackno
143Specify the track number (cylinder number * number of heads + head
144number) to read the sector ID fields from; only allowed together with
145the
146.Fl I Ar numsects
147option.
148.El
149.Sh FILES
150.Bl -tag -width /dev/fd0
151.It Pa /dev/fd0
152Default device to read from.
153.El
154.Sh DIAGNOSTICS
155The
156.Nm
157utility sets the exit value according to
158.Xr sysexits 3 .
159In recovery mode, the exit value will be set to
160.Dv EX_IOERR
161if any error occurred during processing (even in quiet mode).
162.Pp
163Unless running in quiet mode, upon encountering an error, the status
164of the floppy disc controller (FDC) will be printed out, both in
165hexadecimal form, followed by a textual description that translates
166those values into a human-readable form for the most common error
167cases that can happen in a PC environment.
168.Pp
169The FDC error status includes the three FDC status registers
170.Ql ST0 ,
171.Ql ST1 ,
172and
173.Ql ST2 ,
174as well as the location of the error (physical cylinder, head, and sector
175number, plus the
176.Dq sector shift value ,
177respectively).  See the manual for the NE765 or compatible for details
178about the status register contents.
179.Pp
180The FDC's status is then examined to determine whether the error is
181deemed to be recoverable.  If error recovery was requested, the
182location of the bad block in the output file is indicated by its
183(hexadecimal) bounds.  Also, a summary line indicating the total number
184of transfer errors will be printed before exiting.
185.Sh SEE ALSO
186.Xr dd 1 ,
187.Xr fdwrite 1 ,
188.Xr sysexits 3 ,
189.Xr fdc 4 ,
190.Xr fdcontrol 8
191.Sh HISTORY
192The
193.Nm
194utility was written mainly to provide a means of recovering at least some of
195the data on bad media, and to obviate the need to invoke
196.Xr dd 1
197with too many hard to memorize options that might be useful to handle
198a floppy.
199.Pp
200The command appeared in
201.Fx 5.0 .
202.Sh AUTHORS
203Program and man page by
204.An J\(:org Wunsch .
205.Sh BUGS
206Concurrent traffic on the second floppy drive located at the same FDC
207will make error recovery attempts pointless, since the FDC status
208obtained after a read error occurred cannot be guaranteed to actually
209belong to the erroneous transfer.  Thus using option
210.Fl r
211is only reliable if
212.Ar device
213is the only active drive on that controller.
214.Pp
215No attempt beyond the floppy error retry mechanism of
216.Xr fdc 4
217is made in order to see whether bad sectors could still be read
218without errors by trying multiple times.
219.Pp
220Bits that are (no longer) available on the floppy medium cannot be
221guessed by
222.Nm .
223