Copy file to Floppy
 

I'm having a hard time copying a file to the floppy
I can mount it no problem - when when I try to copy it states permission denied.....something about read only??

Anyone can help??

Welcome to LQ mana ...

What distro are you using, and what does
your
/etc/fstab
look like?


Cheers,
Tink

Hi Mana - welcome to LQ. As Tinkster indicated, it sounds like you may be mounting your floppy in read-only mode, which would appear in your fstab file as an "ro" on the /mnt/floppy line. Additionally however, the issue may also be with the floppy itself. There's a small plastic square on the back of the floppy that can be moved to write-protect the floppy -- if the square is moved towards the top edge of the floppy (thus opening a hole) the floppy will be write protected. If the square is moved to the lower position (thus closing the hole) the floppy will be in read-write mode. Ordinarily the floppy will be in read-write mode, but this is just another item to check. I suspect that the issue will be with your fstab file, as Tinkster suggested. -- J.W.

I find that using a really simple entry in the fstab can be very enlightening... if the floppy is physically read-only (due to the plastic tab mentioned above) then it'll tell you!

My fstab entry is as such:From left to right:
The device name
The mount point
The filesystem (auto - some of my floppies are not msdos formatted)
The options (noauto - doesn't mount the floppy on boot; users - allows anyone to mount/umount the floppy).
Never too sure about the 0 and 0, but they work.

It states it can only mount it read only
I checked the little tab and tried it both ways - still states permission denied

When you run the mount command does the floppy have to be the drive

When you run the mount command does the floppy have to be in the drive

Yes, definitely ...

Cheers,
Tink

Thanks guys

So I finally got it to copy to the cd - What do I need to do to get it from CD to other computer??

Do I need to remount it??

umount on first machine before removing media
mount on second machine


Cheers,
Tink

nm - I go the answer - I need to remount it - basically reload the drives and tell linux to look at it - and it won't erase anything

Linux - Got to love it

What happens if you don't unmount it

Try it ;)

Well, several things can happen. The data might not be
on the disk since Linux does write caching. You will most
likely be unable to mount another floppy :)


Cheers,
Tink

You say that so cheerfully

I'm gonna go to computer lab in about 2 hrs to see if I can copy it from floppy - hopefully all will be well