Dear Linux Friends or Kind Moderator,

I have an old Dell GX1 Mini Tower PC that is running Kubuntu ( apparently a child of Ubuntu 8.10.kernel 2.6.27-7-generic [AutoMagic] ) with its KDE 4.1 gui. No other OS on the system, just the above.

The machine has sat idle for a long time, but now I am finding myself with free time on my hands and would like to get a better handle on the Linux OS. I'm getting familiar with Kubuntu but expect that I'll need a considerable amount of help to get the old Dell and its CD-ROM drive and floppy drive more useful to me than it is at present since my problem is that neither of those 2 drives are recognized by Kubuntu.

So what's my question? Please direct me to the most useful Linux forum where I can seek help on getting those 2 drives operational.

I'd say try the Hardware forum.
jdk

You have joined the most useful Linux forum to ask a question directing you to the most useful Linux forum?

Floppy drives are almost useless on modern computers, do you have floppy disks that you need the floppy drive for? If you don't I would recommend you use your usb port instead.

As for the CD drive is it possible that it is so old it doesn't recognise burned CDs? and only recognised CD ROMs?

At the very least giving us information on the actual drive like the manufacturer and model would be very helpful.
Also *buntu 8.10 is way out of date and no longer supported. You should download and install a more modern version of Linux and then we can offer you much better assistance.

*First of all the OptiPlex GX1 is a turn-of-the-millennium PC with a 440BX PIIX chipset motherboard, a PII or PIII, 32 MB PC100 RAM (max 768 MB), integrated ATI Rage Pro (AGP 2X) and 200 watt PSU. It's old. Unless you have upgraded hardware it sure is usable but performance-wise in a limited fashion. You may have your (undisclosed) reasons for keeping it but please note that it may not be as (energy) efficient compared to less older machines.

Hardware recognition starts with having proper hardware (do tell if you're knowingly try to mix incompatible hardware), the BIOS and motherboard, so do check your BIOS settings for what's enabled, what should be enabled and what devices are recognized. Then check all available connectors to ensure they're properly seated. The next step for hardware recognition is what the kernel recognizes and offers drivers for so boot the machine and immediately afterwards log in and save 'dmesg' output. Do post that (attach as plain text?) together with 'lspci' output.

Moved: This thread is more suitable in Linux - Hardware and has been moved accordingly to help your thread/question get the exposure it deserves (I have also changed the title to something more appropriate for describing your issue).

1 members found this post helpful.

For the attention of k3lt01 and unSpawn ---

Your observations about the age of the Dell I have to work with are quite true, however, it is not of my choosing. The machine was donated to a group of HIV+ people and they have asked me to help them transfer data from a large number of 3.5" floppy disks they have since their newer PC an HP with WinXp Pro OS simply tells them that their floppies are not formatted. They pulled out the old Dell telling me it had a Linux distro (also old) on it and maybe the UNIX connection would help them solve their problem.

The CD-ROM drive on the Dell is an LG brand, model GCR-8526B.
It's an internal ATAPI (E-IDE) drive that supports all
disk these formats:
-
- Mixed Mode (Audio and Data combined)
- CD-DA,Mode 1 (basic format),
- Mode 2 form 1 and form 2,
- -- Photo CD (Multi-Session),
- CD-XA Ready,
- CD-Plus/CD-Extra,
- CD-RW.
-
Data Transfer Rate:
* Sustained:
-- 21X(Inner Side) 3,150 Kbytes/s
-- 52X(Outer Side) 7,800 Kbytes/s

*Burst (ATAPI)
-- 16.67 MB/s (PIO Mode 4)
-- 16.67 MB/s (Multi DMA- Mode 2)

The BIOS is the original DELL version A07

The floppy drive is a standard floppy drive

Apparently, my original replay has gone over the limit...

I will post the "dmest" and "lspci" outputs in a follow-up post

Regards,
Peter
in Northern Thailand

Apparently, the two outputs are too long to include within the body of this post.

I will try getting them to as attachments.

Peter
in Northern Thailand

P.S. Do you have other suggestions as to how I can get the 2 outputs to you?

I will try making two attachments to this brief follow-up message.

Regards,
Peter
in Northern Thailand

Attached Files

	dmesg_output.txt (38.6 KB, 46 views)
	lspci_output.txt (948 Bytes, 19 views)

that could be fun
i have one old box that still has one ( at least it is not a 5.25 or 8 inch drive )

as far as i know there is still one operating system that still "out of the box" sees a 3.5 in drive

RHEL 5.10 ( or the free centos 5.10 )
i run a clone of RHEL 6.5 on my old box
BUT!!!
i have 1 gig of ram and 500Gig of drive space in that 14 YEAR old Pentum4 computer

for your setup
DO NOT even try any "NEW" operating system
they will need 1 to 2 gig of ram ( you have what 384MB -- from dmesg )
CentOS 5.10 will install on that
just use the NON!!! default desktop "lxde " or a TEXT ( NO - GUI) install


just pull that card out and do not try to get it to work
a "rage" card is to old

That is not what I asked for. I asked you to ensure your BIOS settings for what devices are enabled, what devices are recognized and check all available connectors are properly seated. Please be as detailed as possible.


The DELL runs 2.6.27-7.14-generic. Apparently this kernel requires the "floppy-modules" package. This contains the drivers to be able to recognize floppy disk drives. Install the package, reboot and verify (as root or via Sudo) 'dmesg', 'lsmod' output and 'lspci -vv' the floppy driver is loaded and the device is available.


- What machine, OS and application wrote these disks?
- Since this machine too has a floppy drive can you load a Live CD (KNOPPIX?) and then load one of the floppy disks?
- Are there any other machines that have a working floppy drive?
*Please note that floppy disks are old. Unless they were stored properly their file system may be deteriorating. While Windows XP may not be able to access the floppy disk file system it can make a copy of the whole disk to file using http://sourceforge.net/projects/windd/ (obviously the same goes for any Linux OS you can load). Once you have the disk images in Linux you can use a loop mount to access its contents.



Some unsorted remarks:
- Please ignore any suggestions to change OS right now. (Let's not compound things, you can do that later on.)
- It indeed would be a Good Thing to disable or remove any hardware devices you don't need. Personally I wouldn't want to run any graphical desktop on such a machine.
- Please note Windows XP is officially deprecated. Ensure both the HP and the DELL do not provide any public-facing network services and access is restricted.

Dear unSpawn,

I can reply to your first item regarding the BIOS; I copied the information found on page one as follows:

Dell Computer Corp.
System Optiplex GX1 450 MTbr+ Setup BIOS Version: A07

Time and Date
Diskette Drive A: 3.5 inch, 1.44 MB
Diskette Drive B: Not Installed
Use ZIP as A or B: Off

Drives:
Primary - Type Cyls Hds Pre LZ Sec Size
Drive 0: Auto EIDE Drive 400020
Drive 1: None
Secondary -
Drive 0: None
Drive 1: None
Reserved Memory: None
CPU Speed: 450 MHz
Num Lock: On
Chassis Intrusion: Detected
DAC Snoop: Off
ACPI: Off

page two had the following:

Keyboard Errors: Report
System Password: Not Enabled
Password Status: Unlocked
Boot Sequence: Diskette First
Setup Password: Not Enabled
Auto Power On: Disabled 00:00
Power Management: Disabled
Wakeup On Lan: Off

----------- Integrated Devices ----------------
Sound: On
NIC: On
Mouse: On
Serial Port 1: Auto
Serial Port 2: Auto
Parallel Port: 378
Parallel Mode: PS/2
IDE Hard Disk: Auto
Diskette: Auto
Speaker: On
CPU Serial #: Off

---------- Miscellaneous Information ---------
Celeron Processor - 450 MHz
Level 2 Cache: Size Unknown
System Memory: 384 MB SDRAM
Video Memory: 4 MB SGRAM
Service Tag: ( blank )

As to the connectors, I did re-seat all of them at both ends.

I will download the "floppy-modules" package via my personal HP Mini (its OS is WinXP Pro and I can attach an external floppy drive to it; it also has several USB ports) here at the library and transfer it to the Dell, install it, reboot, then collect/verify the "dmesg" and "lspci -vv" as requested. Once I have the floppy recognized and operational, I can attempt your Live CD KNOPPIX suggestion. None of the machines I have in hand are connected to each in any way; they are all separate entities and only my HP Mini has access to the Internet as I'm not allowed to bring in outside PCs for use within the library.

As the Group's membership is very fluid, I wonder if anyone there at all can enlighten me about how the floppies were originally created. Most of their IT equipment is old as they rely on donations from various NGOs to help them in this matter of equipment. Right now, I can't answer that for you. Your comment "While Windows XP may not be able to access the floppy disk file system it can make a copy of the whole disk to file using http://sourceforge.net/projects/windd/ " sounds interesting, but just how I'd get that up is a question I also can't answer yet.

Please let me know if I've sent you what you need. Many thanks!

A search of the Internet has provided me with the following "floppy-modules" package. I hope I've chosen the right one. If not, please let me know.

https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/intrepi...di/2.6.27-7.14

Try 'sudo apt-get install floppy-modules'?

#Note to self: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/FloppyRecognition

Should not that say?

Use ZIP as A or B: A

Not unless you're using an Iomega ZIP drive.