> > If you took a look at that floppy writer patch, it was _very_
> > clever. It basically took machine down to real mode and then done I/O
> > using bios. I think that floppy-oopser patch is safe (as long as ROM
> > is ROM :-).
>
> And as long as BIOS variables are ROM :-))
Ok, you probably can have machine in state where it will crash during
writing to floppy or when it will write garbage on floppy. But I do
not think it will accidentally overwrite part of harddrive, which is
*the* thing you don't want it to do; and which is the thing that could
be pretty probable if you "just" stored starting offset onto
hdd. Misprogrammed ide controller is just too dangerous. Misprogrammed
floppy controller can do *much* less damage.
I think that if patch tries to first read first sector and makes sure
it begins with "CRASHFLOPPY" signature, it should be pretty safe.
Pavel
-- I'm really pavel@ucw.cz. Look at http://195.113.31.123/~pavel. Pavel Hi! I'm a .signature virus! Copy me into your ~/.signature, please!- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.rutgers.edu Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/