when I insert a cd an icon appears on the desktop.But the same doesn't happen for floppy.When I tried to open a floppy disk by clicking floppy in 'Computer',which is found in places menu, it said cannot mount device.Can anyone help?

-Arunkumar C

type sudo gedit /etc/fstab:dev/fd0 /media/floppy0 auto rw,user,noauto 0 0 change auto to vfat

Thanks but when I typed the command the system displayed

"the file I is not an ordinary file "

and only blank tabs were open.Again when I wanted to open floppy I got the error message

"Unable to mount the selected volume
Error:given UDI is not a mountable one"

Thanks for the help!

unisol was wanting you to change a line in the file /etc/fstab, which you should be able to do as root (or using sudo). I am not familiar with unisol's usage using the colon (perhaps my copy of gedit is too old), but if you can't get what he said to work, type

sudo gedit

which will give you the empty tab you saw, and then open /etc/fstab andthen change the line

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

to

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

If the first line doesn't exist, just add the second line (you might want to add spaces or tabs to line things up with the other lines).

Thank you!!

I tried, but it didn't work

I am GUI and automounter challenged (and not familiar Ubuntu!), but if you can live with that I'll try to take a look at this. Could you post the following:

1. The contents of /etc/fstab
2. The output of mount
3. The output of ls -l /dev/fd0

Thanks.

contents of /etc/fstab/

---------------------------------------------------------------------

# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# <file system> <mount point> <type> <options> <dump> <pass>
proc /proc proc defaults 0 0
/dev/hda3 / ext3 defaults,errors=remount-ro 0 1
/dev/hda5 none swap sw 0 0
/dev/hdc /media/cdrom0 udf,iso9660 user,noauto 0 0
/dev/fd0 /media/floppy0 vfat rw,user,noauto 0 0


---------------------------------------------------------------------

output of mount :

/dev/hda3 on / type ext3 (rw,errors=remount-ro)
proc on /proc type proc (rw)
sysfs on /sys type sysfs (rw)
devpts on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,gid=5,mode=620)
tmpfs on /dev/shm type tmpfs (rw)
usbfs on /proc/bus/usb type usbfs (rw)
tmpfs on /lib/modules/2.6.12-9-386/volatile type tmpfs (rw,mode=0755)
tmpfs on /dev type tmpfs (rw,size=10M,mode=0755)
/dev/fd0 on /mnt/floppy type msdos (rw)

-------------------------------------------------------
ls -l /dev/fd0:

brw-rw---- 1 root floppy 2, 0 2006-09-27 14:43 /dev/fd0

--------------------------------------------------------

Thanks a lot.

but i tried creating a folder called floppy in /mnt.
then typed the command

mount -t msdos /dev/fd0 /mnt/floppy

and suddenly the floppy icon appeared on the screen.I dont have a clue what the command was.Are you familiar with the commmand ?. Can you find anything from the outputs? do you know why I wasn't able to access the floppy earlier?
Thanks a lot for the help !

I not up to date on the latest GUI magic (hence the wisecrack about GUI and automounter challenged!). My understanding is that icons magically appear as the result of an automounter. (As an aside, I recently had an automounter annoying me and rather than try to figure it out, I just killed the automounter and used the old way of doing things!) I suspect the line (from the mount command)

tmpfs on /lib/modules/2.6.12-9-386/volatile type tmpfs (rw,mode=0755)

has something to do with the automounter, but I can't deduce more. You might want to google on "tmpfs" and the "volatile" module if you want to figure some of this out on your own.

The mount command you gave is "the old way of doing things" I mentioned. (Refer to the mount man page for more info.) When you use it, before removing the disk you should unmount it using one of the following:

umount /dev/fd0
umount /mnt/floppy

This makes sure any new data gets written to the (floppy) disk and keeps the OS from getting confused. (BTW, note that there is no "n" after the "u" in the above command.)

You didn't say so, but I believe you must have been root when you gave the mount command. You would also need to be root to subsequently unmount. Be aware that in doing this (and in what I am about to say) you might come into conflict with what the automounter is trying to do; I don't have any advice about it, but if you see some weird stuff, that might be the explanation.

The "-t msdos" in the command you gave specifies the type of filesystem the disk is to have. If you use "-t auto" instead, it will try to figure out which filesystem is there. I believe that "-t msdos" won't work properly (and might corrupt the disk) with "long" filenames ("short" file names can only have 8 characters prior to the "dot" and only 3 after) and you would be better off, if not using "-t auto," at least using "-t vfat."

If the automounter doesn't fight you, you should be able to mount and unmount floppies as a normal user if 1) the /etc/fstab file contains the appropriate line, and 2) you have r/w permission on /dev/fd0. The first is done with the line you've already edited. It is currently set up to mount at /media/floppy0 and is limited to a vfat filesystem. My fstab file contains "auto" instead, so the system can adapt to the contents of the floppy. The second can be done by changing the owner of /dev/fd0 (as root):

chown <your user name> /dev/fd0

or by making yourself a member of the the floppy group (if you are not already). For the last, consult the usermod or group man page.

If you get some of this automounter stuff figured out, maybe you can explain to me how it works! (I really should come into the 21st century sometime! )

Good luck.

EDIT:
When you mount as a normal user, instead of the whole command you've already used, you must use one of the following:

mount /dev/fd0
mount <mount point given in fstab; e.g. /media/floppy0>

The rest of the info is taken from /etc/fstab

Thanks a lot! Your post was extremely helpful, especially that 'n' in 'umount'. I read it as 'unmount' . If I get to know anything about that automounter I'll post it here!

Thanks again!