Can't Copy to a Floppy

Snump · 09-14-2006, 10:31 PM

I know floppy disks are out of date, but for various reasons I have to use them.

When I try copying a file from any folder, to the floppy, it starts, transfers about 20k and then stalls. I can let it sit for hours and nothing happens. The drive light is on, the motor is moving, but nothingis copied. Only part of the file is transferred. For example, the file would be 200k, and on the disk it would show as a 30k file.
I swapped floppy drives and the same thing happens.
The disk is newly formated to FAT and there are no bad sectors.
I tried multiple diskettes as well.
I can copy FROM a diskette slowly, but it does work.

Oras · 09-14-2006, 10:36 PM

I got the same once on another senario, I was trying to copy to an external hard drive connected using (IDE to USB) adapter and got exactly the same. I tried many things ... but at last the problem was from the Hard drive or the controller.
check your controller or try another floppy disk

Snump · 09-14-2006, 10:49 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Oras

I got the same once on another senario, I was trying to copy to an external hard drive connected using (IDE to USB) adapter and got exactly the same. I tried many things ... but at last the problem was from the Hard drive or the controller.
check your controller or try another floppy disk

Its not the controller or floppy.
It worked under the last version of Mandriva.
The diskettes work fine under Windows.

DaneM · 09-15-2006, 03:38 AM

Hello.

Have you tried doing a simple disk dump to the floppy? Try creating a file full of some random stuff, like this:

Code:

$ dd if=/dev/urandom of=randomstuff count=1 bs=1M

You should now have a 1MB file full of random stuff. Now take the md5sum of the file so that you'll have something to compare the written image to, should it work.

Code:

$ md5sum randomstuff

Now, insert the floppy, make sure it is NOT mounted, and do this:

Code:

$ dd if=randomstuff of=/dev/fd0 bs=1M count=1

This may take a little while to complete. Assuming it finishes, you can now take the md5sum of the disk and compare it to the md5sum of the file.

Code:

$ md5sum /dev/fd0

If they match, then the problem does not lie with doing direct writes to the drive (as I understand it). The problem could then be the way it was mounted, or any automounting commands/patches used. It would also mean that with a few tweaks, you can probably have it up and running with the new version of Mandriva.

If this somehow doesn't work, it's probably a kernel problem. Try downloading and installing another kernel. If all else fails, download and compile a "vanilla" kernel from www.kernel.org. (There are plenty of how-tos on that.)

Good luck!

--Dane

Emmanuel_uk · 09-15-2006, 07:11 AM

Quote:

Its not the controller or floppy.
It worked under the last version of Mandriva.
The diskettes work fine under Windows.

I had something a bit similar, with all hardware being OK.
One day floppy refused to work (the one odd day I needed it)
I eventually removed automount from fstab and rebooted and it worked
(mount it manually)
Odd I know, but like you I was sure the floppy etc was ok (tested with knoppix)

Snump · 09-15-2006, 07:27 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DaneM

Hello.

Have you tried doing a simple disk dump to the floppy? Try creating a file full of some random stuff, like this:

Code:

$ dd if=/dev/urandom of=randomstuff count=1 bs=1M

You should now have a 1MB file full of random stuff. Now take the md5sum of the file so that you'll have something to compare the written image to, should it work.

Code:

$ md5sum randomstuff

Now, insert the floppy, make sure it is NOT mounted, and do this:

Code:

$ dd if=randomstuff of=/dev/fd0 bs=1M count=1

This may take a little while to complete. Assuming it finishes, you can now take the md5sum of the disk and compare it to the md5sum of the file.

Code:

$ md5sum /dev/fd0

If they match, then the problem does not lie with doing direct writes to the drive (as I understand it). The problem could then be the way it was mounted, or any automounting commands/patches used. It would also mean that with a few tweaks, you can probably have it up and running with the new version of Mandriva.

If this somehow doesn't work, it's probably a kernel problem. Try downloading and installing another kernel. If all else fails, download and compile a "vanilla" kernel from www.kernel.org. (There are plenty of how-tos on that.)

Good luck!

--Dane

Edit... I misunderstood.

I'll try it when I get home.