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NAME

     fdc — PC architecture floppy disk controller driver

SYNOPSIS

     device fdc

     In /boot/device.hints:
     hint.fdc.0.at="isa"
     hint.fdc.0.port="0x3F0"
     hint.fdc.0.irq="6"
     hint.fdc.0.drq="2"
     hint.fdc.0.flags="0x0"
     hint.fd.0.at="fdc0"
     hint.fd.0.drive="0"
     hint.fd.0.flags="0x0"
     hint.fd.1.at="fdc0"
     hint.fd.1.drive="1"
     hint.fd.1.flags="0x0"

DESCRIPTION

   Device Usage
     This driver provides access to floppy disk drives.  Floppy disks using either FM (single-
     density) or MFM (double or high-density) recording can be handled.

     Floppy disk controllers can connect up to four drives each.  The fdc driver can currently
     handle up to two drives per controller (or four drives on ACPI).  Upon driver
     initialization, an attempt is made to find out the type of the floppy controller in use.
     The known controller types are either the original NE765 or i8272 chips, or alternatively
     enhanced controllers that are compatible with the NE72065 or i82077 chips.  These enhanced
     controllers (among other enhancements) implement a FIFO for floppy data transfers that will
     automatically be enabled once an enhanced chip has been detected.  This FIFO activation can
     be disabled using the per-controller flags value of 0x1.

     By default, this driver creates a single device node /dev/fdN for each attached drive with
     number N.  For historical reasons, device nodes that use a trailing UFS-style partition
     letter (ranging from ‘a’ through ‘h’) can also be accessed, which will be implemented as
     symbolic links to the main device node.

     Accessing the main device node will attempt to autodetect the density of the available
     medium for multi-density devices.  Thus it is possible to use either a 720 KB medium or a
     1440 KB medium in a high-density 3.5 inch standard floppy drive.  Normally, this
     autodetection will only happen once at the first call to open(2) for the device after
     inserting the medium.  This assumes the drive offers proper changeline support so media
     changes can be detected by the driver.  To indicate a drive that does not have the
     changeline support, this can be overridden using the per-drive device flags value of 0x10
     (causing each call to open(2) to perform the autodetection).

     When trying to use a floppy device with special-density media, other device nodes can be
     created, of the form /dev/fdN.MMMM, where N is the drive number, and MMMM is a number
     between one and four digits describing the device density.  Up to 15 additional subdevices
     per drive can be created that way.  The administrator is free to decide on a policy how to
     assign these numbers.  The two common policies are to either implement subdevices numbered 1
     through 15, or to use a number that describes the medium density in kilobytes.  Initially,
     each of those devices will be configured to the maximal density that is possible for the
     drive type (like 1200 KB for 5.25 inch HD drives or 1440 KB for 3.5 inch HD drives).  The
     desired density to be used on that subdevice needs to be configured using fdcontrol(8).

     Drive types are configured using the lower four bits of the per-drive device flags.  The
     following values can be specified:

           1   5.25 inch double-density device with 40 cylinders (360 KB native capacity)

           2   5.25 inch high-density device with 80 cylinders (1200 KB native capacity)

           3   3.5 inch double-density device with 80 cylinders (720 KB native capacity)

           4   3.5 inch high-density device with 80 cylinders (1440 KB native capacity)

           5   3.5 inch extra-density device with 80 cylinders (2880 KB native capacity, usage
               currently restricted to at most 1440 KB media)

           6   Same as type 5, available for compatibility with some BIOSes

     On IA32 architectures, the drive type can be specified as 0 for the drives.  In that case,
     the CMOS configuration memory will be consulted to obtain the value for that drive.  The
     ACPI probe automatically determines these values via the _FDE and _FDI methods, but this can
     be overridden by specifying a drive type hint.

     Normally, each configured drive will be probed at initialization time, using a short seek
     sequence.  This is intended to find out about drives that have been configured but are
     actually missing or otherwise not responding.  (The ACPI probe method does not perform this
     seek.)  In some environments (like laptops with detachable drives), it might be desirable to
     bypass this drive probe, and pretend a drive to be there so the driver autoconfiguration
     will work even if the drive is currently not present.  For that purpose, a per-drive device
     flags value of 0x20 needs to be specified.

   Programming Interface
     In addition to the normal read and write functionality, the fdc driver offers a number of
     configurable options using ioctl(2).  In order to access any of this functionality,
     programmers need to include the header file <sys/fdcio.h> into their programs.  The call to
     open(2) can be performed in two possible ways.  When opening the device without the
     O_NONBLOCK flag set, the device is opened in a normal way, which would cause the main device
     nodes to perform automatic media density selection, and which will yield a file descriptor
     that is fully available for any I/O operation or any of the following ioctl(2) commands.

     When opening the device with O_NONBLOCK set, automatic media density selection will be
     bypassed, and the device remains in a half-opened state.  No actual I/O operations are
     possible, but many of the ioctl(2) commands described below can be performed.  This mode is
     intended for access to the device without the requirement to have an accessible media
     present, like for status inquiries to the drive, or in order to format a medium.  O_NONBLOCK
     needs to be cleared before I/O operations are possible on the descriptor, which requires a
     prior specification of the density using the FD_STYPE command (see below).  Operations that
     are not allowed on the half-opened descriptor will cause an error value of EAGAIN.

     The following ioctl(2) commands are currently available:

     FD_FORM    Used to format a floppy disk medium.  Third argument is a pointer to a struct
                fd_formb specifying which track to format, and which parameters to fill into the
                ID fields of the floppy disk medium.

     FD_GTYPE   Returns the current density definition record for the selected device.  Third
                argument is a pointer to struct fd_type.

     FD_STYPE   Adjusts the density definition of the selected device.  Third argument is a
                pointer to struct fd_type.  For the fixed-density subdevices (1 through 15 per
                drive), this operation is restricted to a process with superuser privileges.  For
                the auto-selecting subdevice 0, the operation is temporarily allowed to any
                process, but this setting will be lost again upon the next autoselection.  This
                can be used when formatting a new medium (which will require to open the device
                using O_NONBLOCK, and thus to later adjust the density using FD_STYPE).

     FD_GOPTS   Obtain the current drive options.  Third argument is a pointer to int, containing
                a bitwise union of the following possible flag values:

                FDOPT_NORETRY   Do not automatically retry operations upon failure.

                FDOPT_NOERRLOG  Do not cause “hard error” kernel logs for failed I/O operations.

                FDOPT_NOERROR   Do not indicate I/O errors when returning from read(2) or
                                write(2) system calls.  The caller is assumed to use FD_GSTAT
                                calls in order to inquire about the success of each operation.
                                This is intended to allow even erroneous data from bad blocks to
                                be retrieved using normal I/O operations.

                FDOPT_AUTOSEL   Device performs automatic density selection.  Unlike the above
                                flags, this one is read-only.

     FD_SOPTS   Set device options, see above for their meaning.  Third argument is a pointer to
                int.  Drive options will always be cleared when closing the descriptor.

     FD_DEBUG   Set the driver debug level.  Third argument is a pointer to int, level 0 turns
                off all debugging.  Only applicable if the driver has been configured with
                options FDC_DEBUG.

     FD_CLRERR  Clear the internal low-level error counter.  Normally, controller-level I/O
                errors are only logged up to FDC_ERRMAX errors (currently defined to 100).  This
                command resets the counter.  Requires superuser privileges.

     FD_READID  Read one sector ID field from the floppy disk medium.  Third argument is a
                pointer to struct fdc_readid, where the read data will be returned.  Can be used
                to analyze a floppy disk medium.

     FD_GSTAT   Return the recent floppy disk controller status, if available.  Third argument is
                a pointer to struct fdc_status, where the status registers (ST0, ST1, ST2, C, H,
                R, and N) are being returned.  EINVAL will be caused if no recent status is
                available.

     FD_GDTYPE  Returns the floppy disk drive type.  Third argument is a pointer to enum
                fd_drivetype.  This type is the same as being used in the per-drive configuration
                flags, or in the CMOS configuration data or ACPI namespace on IA32 systems.

FILES

     /dev/fd*  floppy disk device nodes

SEE ALSO

     fdformat(1), fdread(1), fdwrite(1), ioctl(2), open(2), read(2), write(2), fdcontrol(8)

AUTHORS

     This man page was initially written by Wilko Bulte, and later vastly rewritten by Jörg
     Wunsch.