NAME

diag − General-purpose stand-alone utility package

SYNOPSIS

b  diag

DESCRIPTION

Diag is a general-purpose stand-alone utility package containing a grab-bag of the kinds of tools needed for disk initialization, testing, and file transfer.  Diag supports the Interphase SMD-2180 disk controller. 

The most common use of diag is formatting and labelling a disk — see the format, label, and partition commands.  Diag is also used for transferring files from nine-track or quarter inch magenetic tape to a disk — see the arload and tload commands. 

Diag is interactive — it prompts for options and arguments.  There are two phases to using diag: in the first phase, diag prompts for information about the type of disk drive and controller that it is working with, and essentially “configures” itself to work with that disk and controller;  in the second phase, diag waits for the user to type one of the commands from the list below.  A specific diag command is called up by typing enough characters to uniquely identify the command.  The commands that diag currently recognizes are listed here:

arload
Transfers a file from an Archive quarter inch magnetic tape to a specified partition on a disk.

clear
Sends a restore command to a disk.  This is needed to manually reaset disk errors.

diag
Re-initializes the diag program itself — goes back to phase one of the inititialization process described above. 

errors
Toggles an option to report all errors as they occur.

format
Formats and labels a disk.

gnu
Formats a single track of a disk.  If the track is already formatted, you are asked for confirmation in order to avoid destroying the data on the track.

help or ?
Displays a list of the available commands.

info
Toggles an option to report all disk activity as it completes.

label
Labels the disk.  The format command usually does this for you.  This is here for special cases, such as when the partition definition has changed. 

map
Explicitly maps one track to a different track.  Usually required for bad track mapping.  The format command usually does this automatically. 

partition
Creates, assigns, or modifies logical partition tables for a disk. The UNIX operating system requires logical partitions.  The label command writes the partition map to the disk.  There are standard partition tables for each type of disk that diag knows about. 

position
Tests the disk by reading sectors from random positions on the disk. This command runs until the user aborts it by typing the letter ‘a’.

read
Reads specified blocks from the disk.  The read command prompts for the starting block number, number of blocks, and the block increment.  The read command doesn’t report the data it reads — it is intended for verifying that blocks are readable. 

seek
Performs a seek test on the disk such that a seek is made to every cylinder and a seek is made to every possible cylinder distance.

status
Reports the ready status of each drive on the current controller.

test
Does a general disk test by writing random data to random positions on the disk and then verifying that the correct data can be read back.  The test command destroys data on the disk.  It runs until the user aborts the process by typing the letter ‘a’. 

tload
Transfers a file from an nine-track magnetic tape to a specified partition on a disk.

verify
Reads and displays the label from the disk.  Shows the logical partition assignments.  This is usually done automatically when the format command has labelled the disk. 

write
Writes garbage data to specified blocks on the disk.  The write command prompts for the starting block number, number of blocks, and the block increment.  The write is intended for verifying that blocks are writeable. 

+
Adds two numbers and reports the result in decimal, hexadecimal, and as a disk address.

-
Subtracts two numbers and reports the result in decimal, hexadecimal, and as a disk address.

Block numbers may be entered either as an absolute decimal block number, or as a disk address of the form cylinder/head/sector. 

Any diag command may be aborted by typing a lower case ‘a’ or by pressing the DEL key. 

7th Edition  —  Revision 1.3 of UniSoft UNIX — 12/15/82