Reading old disks on Linux

From: Fred Cisin <cisin_at_xenosoft.com>
Date: Sat Oct 19 16:39:04 2002

On Sat, 19 Oct 2002, Patrick Finnegan wrote:
> > I would read the sector headers, which would give you all that you need.
> Ok, I've looked over Intel's datasheet for the 82077A and 82078 that they
> have online, and can't find any command that'll easily let me just 'read
> sector headers'. Is there something I'm missing? The closest command I
> could find was "READ ID HEADER" which would return the first sector ID
> that it found. Do I need to read the entire track or someting?

A: If you read a header, can you process the data, and be ready to read
again in less than 1/50 of a second? Ifnot, then you could read even
numbered headers on one revolution, and odd numbered on another.


Reading the track and parsing the raw data into sector headers and data
can be done with the WDC 179a series (or an Amiga), but is not practical
with the NEC 765 derivatives. Those, instead of a track read, have a
multi-sector read.
Received on Sat Oct 19 2002 - 16:39:04 BST