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-   -   Unmountable Floppy? (Gentoo, Dell i8200) (https://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/linux-newbie-8/unmountable-floppy-gentoo-dell-i8200-238857/)

soupface 10-04-2004 09:09 PM

Unmountable Floppy? (Gentoo, Dell i8200) [Solved]
 
Recently bootstrapped Gentoo 2004.2 on my Dell Inspiron 8200 (Pentium 4 m 1.6Ghz...). I have yet to get X.org up: trying to take things a step at a time.

Firstly: I can mount my CD-ROM (read only) without a hitch, but can't mount my floppy drive.

The only floppy-like thing in /dev is /dev/fd, which points to /proc/self/fd. I've tried mounting it (mount /dev/fd /mnt/floppy), but mount claims it's not a block device.

I've no pressing need for a floppy drive (these days, who does?), but it'd be nice to get it working. Any suggestions? Am I over looking something?

Secondly: Is there any reason why I shouldn't have my CD and floppy drives automatically mounted? In other words: what benefits come from the noauto option in fstab for these drives?

Thanks, in advance.

kilgoretrout 10-04-2004 10:17 PM

There should be a /dev/fd0 for your floppy drive. If it's absent, my best guess would be a problem with your kernel configuration, but that's just a guess. I haven't compiled a kernel from scratch in a while but there may be something in there that you have to enable for your floppy to work.
Re your fstab entries for your cd drives - unless you intend to have a cd in your drive at all times you should use the noauto option. The drive isn't mounted; the media in the drive are mounted. If you leave out the noauto option on a cd drive and have no mountable cd in the drive when you boot, it will probably hang up trying to mount the nonexistent media in your cd drive. The noauto option tells the system to not try and mount the cd drive and is commonly used with any device that has removable media like cd drives and floppies.

soupface 10-05-2004 11:19 AM

It could well be a kernel configuration issue, but I'm not sure what option I missed/added that would cause it not to recognize the floppy drive.

My kernel configuration includes the line CONFIG_BLK_DEV_FD=y, but is not set for CONFIG_BLK_DEV_IDEFLOPPY. Do I need to recompile the kernel with this option set to y? (This option is modularized in this example kernel config.)

justin_p 10-05-2004 11:39 AM

what's your /etc/fstab look like?

soupface 10-05-2004 11:50 AM

Well, the relevant section of my fstab looks like so:
Code:

/dev/cdroms/cdrom0  /mnt/cdrom  auto  noauto,user  0 0
#/dev/fd  /mnt/floppy  auto  noauto,user  0 0

I commented out the floppy drive part because, well, it doesn't work.

I've also just finished re-compiling my kernel, with the CONFIG_BLK_DEV_IDEFLOPPY=y: no luck. There's only /dev/fd -> /proc/self/fd and that won't mount.

egag 10-05-2004 11:52 AM

--------------
quote: "Do I need to recompile the kernel with this option set to y?"
----------------
hi there,

is this a usb-fd or build-in ?
and i would recompile it with that option. just to try... :)

egag

edit: ok..your fast... :)

soupface 10-05-2004 12:08 PM

According to the Gentoo forums, there's a bug in the 2.6.8-r3 kernel that causes floppydrives not to be recognized. A Thread there describes a solution (adding floppy=no_acpi to your GRUB configuration) that circumvents the kernel bug.

It works for me.

I have another question: how do you apply code patches (specifically, how could I apply the code patch given at the end of the floppydrive thread)?

justin_p 10-05-2004 01:23 PM

you could go ahead and create : mkdir /dev/fd0 and then add this to your fstab. should work for the floppy. not sure about the kernel error.


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