diskd - disk daemon; wait for disk to be inserted

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The diskd command has the following syntax:

CWdiskd [CW-d driveCW] [CW-i intervalCW] [CW-e commandCW]

Diskd waits for a disk to be inserted into a given drive, and then either executes the command or exits. This program can be used to automatically mount a disk as soon as it is inserted.

This program works by switching the motor on for a very short interval, and then seeking to track -1. This might damage hardware in the long run. Amigas, which also use these techniques, are known for having problems with their disk drives no longer spinning up properly after a few month of usage.

CW-d driveCW

Selects the drive to observe for disk insertion. By default, drive 0 (CW/dev/fd0) is observed.

CW-i intervalCW

Selects the polling interval. The interval is given in tenths of seconds. Default is 10 (one second).

CW-e commandCW

Gives the command to be executed when a disk is inserted. If no command is given the program simply exits. Typically, the command mounts the disk. It can be a shell scripts which probes for several filesystems and disk geometries until it succeeds.

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Automatic unmounting cannot yet be handled. It is indeed not enough to scan for disk removal, because when the disk is removed, it is already too late: There might be some buffers needing flushing. However, the CWfdmountd program allows automatic unmounting by using the CWSYNC mount options, which switches off write buffering (see section fdmount).

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The drive motor is running all the time, and on some computers, the drive led flickers at each time the drive is polled.

Fdutils' texinfo doc