My spec:

Debian 'Sarge' with 2.6.8-smp kernel

Logged on as 'root'

This is what I have in fstab file:

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

I mount the floppy drive with a fat16 floppy disk and I saw the light go on:

mount /dev/fd0

I tried to copy a file from /root

cp /root/karl /fd0

Nothing happens. No light flashing.

What did I do wrong?

try this

make a directory called floppy in our mount folder

mkdir /mnt/floppy

then mount the floppy here

mount /dev/fd0 /mnt/floppy

then copy to /mnt/floppy

cp /root/karl /fd0

then unmount

umount /mnt/floppy

This is what I did:

mount /dev/fd0 /mnt/floppy

This is what came up:

mount: mount point /mnt/floppy is not a directory

This is what it looks like now in fstab after I did a fresh install:

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

/mnt/floppy is there by default

?

so make sure the dir /media/floppy0 exists, put in a floppy, and type, in a terminal: "mount /media/floppy0"


PS: hope you didn't actually reinstall just because of this problem....

To answer your question. You did nothing wrong.

linux buffers writing to disk including floppy drives so the actual physical write process might not happen until you unmount the disk.

ExCIA: It sounds like you don’t understand the concept of a mount point.

For mount to work, it needs a target location (i.e., a mount point) to link the device to. A mount point is just a folder/directory and it must preexist before using the mount command. Mount does not create the mount point. You create the mount point.

For example, in your first post, the fstab entry will only work if the folder /fd0 exists on the system.

The /media/... vs. /mnt/... directories are the typical locations where devices are mounted, but a mount point can be anywhere.

Yes. I know that I do not understand it fully and I finally got it to work by using mount /media/floppy0 suggested by Genesee.

I assumed that I'm suppose to be using /dev/fd0, but I was wrong and I guess I can change /media/floppy0 to say /fd0 as long as the fd0 exist in /fd0, right?

Genesee, I didn't completing reinstall since I created an image of it using Acronis TrueImage.

the fstab (filesystem table) is just a file listing mounts - that table can be used to automount filesystems at boot, or can be used as a shortcut, in that you only need to type the mountpoint if the mount is listed in fstab. in this case, the mountpoint is /media/floppy0, listed in fstab, so all you need is "mount /media/floppy0"

you can also do it manually, by identifying the device (/dev/fd0) and the mount point, plus any options, using the mount command. see "man mount" for lots of options and the command format.

sure you could change /media/floppy0 to anything you want, /media/fd0, /fd0, /mnt/floppy, or whatever. just make sure the directory exists before you try to mount to it. if not, use mkdir to make it

To add something to this. The default option in mount considaring the I/O is async.
async: All I/O to the file system should be done asynchronously.
This way you give the freedom to the system to do the transfer whenever it likes. (usualy this is done when you umount the device).
If you want to force your system to copy the files when you type the transfer command (like windows do), you may use the sync option in fstab.
sync: All I/O to the file system should be done synchronously.
But my expirience says that this is a bad practice, because most users forget to umount the floppy before they eject it.

Thanks for the advices guys.