mount and display a floppy
 

Hello,
After verifying that the recommended line for /etc/fstab is
correct as stated in another website...something like
/dev/fd0 /media/floppy0 auto rw,..............etc.
and rebooting so that it should have been executed.
And then issuing the command
udisks --mount /dev/fd0
I get this error message explaining the failure:
"could not mount.../dev/fd0 is not a valid block device.

bill@happy1:/sbin$ lspci
00:00.0 Host bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8378 [KM400/A] Chipset Host Bridge
00:01.0 PCI bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8237/VX700 PCI Bridge
00:07.0 Network controller: RaLink RT2561/RT61 802.11g PCI
00:10.0 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82xxxxx UHCI USB 1.1 Controller (rev 80)
00:10.1 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82xxxxx UHCI USB 1.1 Controller (rev 80)
00:10.2 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82xxxxx UHCI USB 1.1 Controller (rev 80)
00:10.3 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. USB 2.0 (rev 82)
00:11.0 ISA bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8235 ISA Bridge
00:11.1 IDE interface: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82C586A/B/VT82C686/A/B/VT823x/A/C PIPC Bus Master IDE (rev 06)
00:11.5 Multimedia audio controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8233/A/8235/8237 AC97 Audio Controller (rev 50)
00:12.0 Ethernet controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT6102 [Rhine-II] (rev 74)
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. KM400/KN400/P4M800 [S3 UniChrome] (rev 01)
bill@happy1:/sbin$ uname -r
2.6.35-32-generic

Any help would be appreciated.

Try 'dmesg | grep -i floppy'

post output here

also what type was the floppy formatted in?

bill@happy1:~$ dmesg | grep -i floppy
[ 1.411894] Floppy drive(s): fd0 is 1.44M

The floppy was created as a Windows bootable, so my guess is vfat

try this with the disk in

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

I put the Windows bootable floppy in the drive, then:

bill@happy1:/mnt$ sudo mount -t vfat /dev/fd0 /mnt/floppy0
mount: /dev/fd0 is not a valid block device

What distribution/version are you running?
The floppy module may not be loaded.

As root try:
modprobe floppy

bill@happy1:/mnt$ sudo modprobe floppy
[sudo] password for bill:
bill@happy1:/mnt$
....there was no output from this command.....

I am running Ubuntu 10.10 with kernel 2.6.35-32-generic

No output is a good thing.
Try to mount your floppy

thats normal now try

sudo mount -t vfat /dev/fd0 /mnt/floppy0

might want to add it to your /etc/modules list just enter floppy

bill@happy1:/mnt$ sudo mount -t vfat /dev/fd0 /mnt/floppy0
mount: block device /dev/fd0 is write-protected, mounting read-only

Added "floppy" (sans quotes) to /etc/modules

However, directory /mnt/floppy0 is still empty.

perhaps try mount -t auto /dev/fd0 /mnt/floppy0 after unmounting

also are you positive there is contents within the disk?

It appears the floppy is mounted.
Did you write protect the disk on purpose?
What is supposed to be on the disk?
How was it created?

I recently read the disk using Windows and it has many files, so I'm
pretty sure of the floppy's integrity.

bill@happy1:/mnt/floppy0$ umount /dev/fd0
umount: /dev/fd0 is not mounted (according to mtab)
bill@happy1:/mnt/floppy0$ sudo mount -t auto /dev/fd0 /mnt/floppy0
[sudo] password for bill:
mount: block device /dev/fd0 is write-protected, mounting read-only
bill@happy1:/mnt/floppy0$ dir
----directory has no contents-----
----then I shifted the write-protect tab on the floppy to off-----
bill@happy1:/mnt/floppy0$ sudo mount -t auto /dev/fd0 /mnt/floppy0
mount: /dev/fd0 is not a valid block device

Sacre Bleu...did it mount or did it not ?? I dunno...

By using "Windows" I mean another operating system on this same computer,
so it's using the same hardware now, only under Ubuntu 10.10

You can not mount or unmount a file system if the current working directory is the mount point in this case /mnt/floppy0). Move up a directory to /mnt (FYI the short cut is cd ..) and try mounting it again. The output of the mount command without any options will display a list of all currently mounted file systems.