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(fdutils.info)Floppy ioctls

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Floppy ioctls
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   All these ioctl's may be issued using the floppycontrol program. (See
also floppycontrols man page)

`FDSETPRM'
     sets the geometry (number of tracks, heads and sectors, etc) of a
     drive.

`FDDEFPRM'
     sets the geometry in a permanent way (not cleared after a disk
     change)

`FDGETPRM'
     read a previously set drive geometry (or an autodetected geometry)
     back.

`FDCLRPRM'
     makes the driver forget the geometry for a given drive (to trigger
     autodetection)

`FDFLUSH'
     forgets the contents of the floppy buffers. CAUTION: This doesn't
     write dirty buffers to the disk. Use fsync first.

`FDGETDRVTYP'
     displays the type of a drive (name parameter). This is used by
     `MAKEFLOPPIES'. For the naming convention, see the description of
     the `MAKEFLOPPIES' script. For formats which work in several drive
     types, `FDGETDRVTYP' return a name which is appropriate for the
     oldes drive type which supports this format.

`FDSETDRVPRM'
     sets various drive parameters.

`FDGETDRVPRM'
     reads these parameters back.

`FDGETDRVSTAT'
     gets the cached drive state (disk changed, write protected et al.)

`FDPOLLDRVSTAT'
     polls the drive and return its state.

`FDGETFDCSTAT'
     gets the floppy controller state.

`FDRESET'
     resets the floppy controller under certain conditions.

`FDRAWCMD'
     sends a raw command to the floppy controller.

`FDWERRORCLR'
     clear the write error stats.

`FDWERRORGET'
     gets the write error stats.

`FDSETMAXERRS'
     sets the error thresholds (when to display error messages on the
     console, and when to abort operations). The maxerror structure is
     part of the drive parameters, but this ioctl is needed in addition
     to `FDSETDRVPRM' because `FDSETDRVPRM' is only accessible to the
     superuser whereas `FDSETMAXERRS' is accessible to whoever has
     write access to the floppy device.

`FDMSGON/FDMSGOFF'
     switch informational messages on/off. This flag is part of the
     drive parameters as well, but `FDMSGON/FDMSGOFF' don't need
     superuser status.

   There are other ioctls as well, but they are considered obsolete and
their use is discouraged.