These floppy images have been created as a convenience for those who may have a damaged install floppy, or who need to get crucial drivers onto an OPENSTEP floppy but don't have a running OPENSTEP machine.
If you have a damaged installation floppy, the only way to create a new one, even under OPENSTEP, is to make a copy of another one. The instructions for creating floppies from images under OPENSTEP are in the next section.
If you have a machine configuration which requires for installation a certain driver (usually a SCSI adapter driver) which is not provided on the installation driver floppy, and you don't already have a running OPENSTEP system, you can create a driver floppy under another system. If you have DOS running on your PC, you can download the proper driver floppy image and create an OPENSTEP disk under DOS using the rawrite program.
NOTE: This procedure can only be used on floppy images; that is, files that exist on NeXTanswers with the ".floppyimage" extension.
Creating OPENSTEP Floppies From Images Under OPENSTEP
1 Make sure you are logged in as root.
2 Download the floppy image and decompress it from the Workspace via the File->Uncompress menu item. Make sure you are logged in as root.
3 Verify that the image has been downloaded correctly by comparing the results of /usr/bin/sum to the sums given for each floppy image. For example: # sum 1883_3.2_Boot_Floppy.floppyimage
43583 1440
4 Insert a blank 1.44 megabyte 3.5" HD floppy disk into the floppy drive.
5 In the Workspace, choose the command Check For Disks from the Disk menu. Initialize the disk as an OPENSTEP filesystem. When the disk is done initializing, select Eject from the disk menu, but leave the floppy in the drive.
6 If you have placed the image in /tmp, type this command to copy the boot floppy image to the new disk.
# dd if=/tmp/Floppy_Image of=/dev/rfd0b
7 After a few minutes, the duplication will be complete. Type this command:
# disk -e /dev/rfd0b
8 Physically eject the disk from the drive. It is ready to use.
Users of this software must accept this disclaimer of warranty: "This
software is supplied AS IS. Mark Becker disclaims all warranties, expressed
or implied, including, without limitation, the warranties of merchantability
and of fitness for any purpose. Mark Becker assumes no liability for
damages, direct or consequential, which may result from the use of this
software."
* PC/XT/AT or 100% compatible with at least 256K of RAM and a floppy disk
drive.
* MS-DOS version 3.21 or greater.
* A formatted diskette.
This program uses well-documented generic low-level DOS and BIOS functions.
It should run on nearly every PC in existance. PS/2's should be able to run
RaWrite but this has not been tested.
CAVEAT
------
This program will write ANY disk file to a floppy, overwriting any previous
information that may have been present. If you wish to re-use a diskette
that has been written to by RaWrite then that diskette will probably need to
be reformatted; all MS-DOS specific information will have been erased.
Usage
-----
C> RAWRITE
And follow the prompts. All arguments are case-insensitive.
If the source and destination drives are the same, RaWrite will ask the user
to swap diskettes as required. Rawrite allocates a large buffer in RAM to
reduce the number of disk swaps.
RaWrite may be aborted at any time by typing ^C or CTRL-Break.
Errors
------
RaWrite attempts to determine if the diskette is a 1.44M, 1.2M, 720K, or 360K
diskette by reading sectors 18, 15, and 9 in that order. If the inserted
diskette is not one of the these types, then RaWrite will abort with an error
message.
Errors such as write protect, door open, bad disk, bad sector, etc. cause a
program abort with a short error message.
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