The Floppy!

carlosinfl · 09-27-2006, 12:14 PM

OK - so I actually had someone hand me a real floppy disk yesterday to get a small text file from. Sure, they could have emailed it to me but I was humored by interaction and took the floppy. Now I noticed as I slid the floppy in my Dell PC (Debian) that I have never even attempted to mount a floppy in this or any Linux PC for atleast 2 years.

I gave the

Code:

mount /dev/fd0

command and it did not like that one bit. I then checked fstab.

Code:

# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# <file system> <mount point>   <type>  <options>       <dump>  <pass>
proc            /proc           proc    defaults        0       0
/dev/sda1       /               ext3    defaults,errors=remount-ro 0       1
/dev/sda6       /home           ext3    defaults        0       2
/dev/sda5       none            swap    sw              0       0
/dev/hda        /media/cdrom0   udf,iso9660 user,noauto     0       0
/dev/hdb        /media/cdrom1   udf,iso9660 user,noauto     0       0

I don't appear to have a floppy entry here so I guess I am wondering what my next step would be to get this floppy drive working?

I don't know if this is relivant but here is /etc/modules:

Code:

# /etc/modules: kernel modules to load at boot time.
#
# This file contains the names of kernel modules that should be loaded
# at boot time, one per line. Lines beginning with "#" are ignored.

ide-cd
ide-disk
ide-generic
psmouse
mousedev

i_grok · 09-27-2006, 01:14 PM

As root, open /etc/fstab and add the line:

Code:

/dev/fd0    /media/floppy    vfat    user,noauto    0    0

Then:

Code:

mkdir -p /media/floppy
mount /media/floppy

carlosinfl · 09-27-2006, 02:29 PM

OK, my fstab now looks like this.

--------------------

# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# <file system> <mount point> <type> <options> <dump> <pass>
proc /proc proc defaults 0 0
/dev/sda1 / ext3 defaults,errors=remount-ro 0 1
/dev/sda6 /home ext3 defaults 0 2
/dev/sda5 none swap sw 0 0
/dev/hda /media/cdrom0 udf,iso9660 user,noauto 0 0
/dev/hdb /media/cdrom1 udf,iso9660 user,noauto 0 0
/dev/fd0 /media/floppy vfat,user,noauto 0 0

I then did the following:

Code:

cwilliams:/# mkdir -p /media/floppy
cwilliams:/# mount /media/floppy
mount: unknown filesystem type 'noauto'

farslayer · 09-27-2006, 02:36 PM

There should be a <tab> between the filesystem type and the settings, not a ',' comma.

here is my entry.. file system type is set to auto instead of vfat

Code:

/dev/fd0        /media/floppy0  auto    rw,user,noauto  0       0

carlosinfl · 09-27-2006, 02:40 PM

Does this look any better?

Code:

# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# <file system> <mount point>   <type>  <options>       <dump>  <pass>
proc            /proc           proc    defaults        0       0
/dev/sda1       /               ext3    defaults,errors=remount-ro 0       1
/dev/sda6       /home           ext3    defaults        0       2
/dev/sda5       none            swap    sw              0       0
/dev/hda        /media/cdrom0   udf,iso9660 user,noauto     0       0
/dev/hdb        /media/cdrom1   udf,iso9660 user,noauto     0       0
/dev/fd0        /media/floppy0  auto    rw,user,noauto  0       0

Because I still get the following error.

mount: you must specify the filesystem type

i_grok · 09-28-2006, 08:50 AM

Sorry about my typo. It sounds like the floppy isn't formatted, or your kernel doesn't know the filesystem type. What is on this floppy?

J.W. · 09-28-2006, 01:30 PM

Try

Code:

mount -t vfat /dev/fd0 /media/floppy0

I'm assuming that the floppy was formatted under Windows. If it isn't FAT32 (eg, vfat) then try ntfs

As an aside, you don't have to have an entry in fstab just to mount a particular device - you can always just mount it manually. Putting the entry in fstab however is helpful if you want the system to automatically try to mount it when it boots up

carlosinfl · 09-28-2006, 01:46 PM

It's working!

Code:

cwilliams@cwilliams:~$ cd /media/floppy/
cwilliams@cwilliams:/media/floppy$ ls
mraid  mraid2k.sys  Mraid35x.sys  nodev.inf  Oemsetup.inf  perc-cerc-w2k3-6.46.2.32-A05.txt  percraid.cat  txtsetup.oem

Ehwaz · 09-29-2006, 03:06 AM

Good for you!

carlosinfl · 09-29-2006, 08:10 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ehwaz

Good for you!

I failed to mention my stupidity of not verifying the floppy has enabled via the BIOS...