Can they make Linux any more complicated?

[LastStop]

I'm trying to access the friggin floppy drive on my Laptop. Any ideas how to do this? I try mounting it but that doesn't work.

 

[Tiger]

The mount command syntax is mount -t type device mount-point
To mount a DOS floppy the command would be mount -t msdos /dev/fd0 /mnt
To mount a Linux floppy mount -t ext2 /dev/fd0 /mnt
Make sure you unmount the filesystem before removing the media.
The unmount command is umount /dev/fd0
All of the above is available in the man pages for the mount command, man mount

 

[LastStop]

Thanks for those commands, but they didn't work🙁. I can't even format a disk using the KFormat, it gives me an error at 50%.

 

[Tiger]

I should add that the commands need to be executed with diskette in the drive.
I see your using Kformat and assume you've got KDE installed. Which distro are you using?

 

[n0cmonkey]

You need ot be root to mount it, and it may be a bad floppy. Thats why I stopped using them 😀

 

[Need4Speed]

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey
You need ot be root to mount it, and it may be a bad floppy. Thats why I stopped using them 😀

Yep! 🙂 same here....not one of my machines has a floppy drive anymore.

 

[Nothinman]

You need ot be root to mount it,

Not necessarily, if the 'user' option is in fstab an user can mount the floppy as long as it's to the directory specified in fstab.

and it may be a bad floppy. Thats why I stopped using them

Yup, I hate floppies with a passion. It seems the floppy drive in my main machine doesn't work any more and I hadn't noticed for many months since I never use it =)

 

[PG]

complicated?

If you use KDE how about you click the little floppy icon once. 🙂

 

[LastStop]

I do have the floppy in the drive when I try to format. The status bar counts to 51% and then gives me an error saying that it read cylinder -1 instead of some large number. Same thing happens for atleast 10 other floppies I tried. I don't use floppies that much but I would like to know that I can use it if I had to. I don't have a CDR/W because this is an old labtop so eventually I'll need to use the floppy drive.

BTW the disto is RedHat 7.3

 

[Chaotic42]

Originally posted by: LastStop
I'm trying to access the friggin floppy drive on my Laptop. Any ideas how to do this? I try mounting it but that doesn't work.

Sure, it's called HURD 😉

j/k

 

[jhu]

why make things harder than they really are? get mtools for floppy access.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Yup, I hate floppies with a passion. It seems the floppy drive in my main machine doesn't work any more and I hadn't noticed for many months since I never use it =)

I was recently moving my entire system from one tower case to another, and noticed the date on my floppy drive - 1994. It has been my main floppy drive for years, and it has always worked, although I clean it occasionally. It was made by NEC, and is nearly silent (amazingly so). I think it was originally designed to be a laptop drive, because it is lower-profile than all other floppy drives, and has a faceplate that is normal height connected to it. The drive itself is only 3/4 as high as the faceplate.

Just mentioning this as an anecdote about the exception to the rule. If I could find another one of these floppy drives, even if it cost $30-40, I would buy it in a second. I've gone through many other $10 cheapo floppies on other systems, that didn't last nearly as long as this thing has.