Re: lseek() fails to seek on /dev/fd0 ('\\.\A:')

["matt" <matt at use dot net>]

> On Mon, Feb 26, 2001 at 10:10:15PM +0300, Egor Duda wrote:
> > CV> Indeed. I would be interested in the trivial patch as well.
> >
> > well, almost trivial ;-)
> > It's not fully compatible with linux, as it doesn't allow seeking past
> > the  end  of  media (i think this is ok), and, alas, for NT only :( (i
> > don't  think  this  is ok, but i haven't found a way to get media size
> > under w9x)
>
> Did you try that even on raw partitions (\\.\X:)? From the MSDN:
>
> "The IOCTL_DISK_GET_DRIVE_GEOMETRY control code retrieves information
>  about the physical disk's geometry"
>
> so I assume it will only work for raw harddisks (\\.\physicaldriveN).

If memory serves, a reason why dual-booting between win9x, NT, Linux, etc is
difficult is because early versions of win95 don't properly interpret what the
BIOS tells them about drive geometry and massage/use the information in a
somewhat unpredictable way. I remember this being discussed (by intelligent
people) on the Linux Kernel Mailing List recently -- let me see if I can find
the message and I'll reply with a link.

I would suggest testing this ioctl quite a bit across win9x variants before
implementing, or only supporting it on win98/ME.