Formatting Floppy Usb Drive Redhat9
I feel bad on posting this because this should be something easy to figure out but it has me whipped I can mount my floopy read and write to it but when it comes to formatting all I can format it is ext2 filesystem but I want to format it to vfat here is the command I have been trying to use
/sbin/mkfs -t vfat /dev/sda mkfs.vfat 2.8 (28 Feb 2001) mkfs.vfat: Will not try to make filesystem on '/dev/sda' but when I try to make ext2 no problem heres the output /sbin/mke2fs /dev/sda mke2fs 1.32 (09-Nov-2002) /dev/sda is entire device, not just one partition! Proceed anyway? (y,n) y Filesystem label= OS type: Linux Block size=1024 (log=0) Fragment size=1024 (log=0) 184 inodes, 1440 blocks 72 blocks (5.00%) reserved for the super user First data block=1 1 block group 8192 blocks per group, 8192 fragments per group 184 inodes per group Writing inode tables: done Writing superblocks and filesystem accounting information: done This filesystem will be automatically checked every 31 mounts or 180 days, whichever comes first. Use tune2fs -c or -i to override. [root@localhost downloads]# but I want vfat tried also the fdformat command fdformat /dev/sda Could not determine current format type: Invalid argument I will appreciate any help getting a headache from looking on the web for a simple answer |
This ones easy. Floppies can't be formatted FAT32(vfat); you should format them FAT(msdos). Try running:
# /sbin/mkfs -t msdos /dev/sda 1440 |
this is what i get when trying that one
[root@localhost lorenzo]# /sbin/mkfs -t msdos /dev/sda 1440 mkfs.msdos 2.8 (28 Feb 2001) mkfs.msdos: Will not try to make filesystem on '/dev/sda' this is so simple its frustrating I appreciate any help |
Just for grins, you can try to format using /dev/fd0 instead of /dev/sda. IIRC my mandrake install on my laptop creates an fd0 for my usb floppy through which I access the floppy drive.
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lorenzo111,
Did you figure out how to make this work? I'm running into the same problem now, on RHEL3. The last suggestion posted here doesn't work for me; on my system /dev/fd0 is a different major number than /dev/sda. |
Try this:
Low level format first, Code:
fdformat -n /dev/fd0H1440 lay down the filesystem, Code:
mkfs.vfat /dev/fd0 Edit: OOPS! My bad. Should've paid more attention to the title. Try /dev/sd0 |
fdformat, like mkfs, has trouble with floppy drives that are not /dev/fd*.
I've figured out how to make mkfs work. The command Code:
mkfs -t vfat /dev/sda Code:
mkfs -t vfat /dev/sda1 As the man page explains, mkfs is just a front-end to various other commands to make specific types of file systems. However, since mkfs is trying to present a consistent user interface, it would be nice if the commands themselves worked more consistently. (Also, for floppy drives, it is really more correct to refer to the entire device rather than a partition thereof.) Still, this discrepancy would be only a minor annoyance, except for the fact that the error message returned by "mkfs -t vfat" when the wrong device is given--"Will not try to make filesystem on '/dev/sda'"--is useless. It gives no information about why the command fails or how one might correct it. You can force mkfs to work without adding the partition number to the device: for ext2, use the -F option (which skips the warning prompt), and for vfat use the -I option. Also, as a slight correction to kilgoretrout's first post in this thread, mkfs.msdos and mkfs.vfat are in fact hard links to the same file, so they do the same thing (create a vfat file system). I have not yet figured out how to make fdformat work with a USB drive. "fdformat /dev/sda" and "fdformat /dev/sda1" both fail with an "Invalid argument" error. The man page implies fdformat is hard-coded to recognize only drives with a major number of 2. (USB drives are major number 8.) |
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