Yes, really. I've got hundreds of the damn things here at home, and I want to go through them and get rid of them all.
But... to do that I want to read them. I have both a 5.25" and a 3.5" drive, both are plugged in, but in the BIOS, all I see is the 3.5". Fine, I figure I'll take care of those.
Nope. I see /dev/fd0 once I've booted up, but neither konqueror nor mount nor fdisk works - the latter telling me that /dev/fd0 is not a valid block device. After some googling, I tried modprobe floppy, which installed it, but still no joy.
Anyone have a clue?
mark
On Sun, Apr 7, 2013 at 2:45 PM, mark m.roth@5-cent.us wrote:
Yes, really. I've got hundreds of the damn things here at home, and I want to go through them and get rid of them all.
But... to do that I want to read them. I have both a 5.25" and a 3.5" drive, both are plugged in, but in the BIOS, all I see is the 3.5". Fine, I figure I'll take care of those.
Nope. I see /dev/fd0 once I've booted up, but neither konqueror nor mount nor fdisk works - the latter telling me that /dev/fd0 is not a valid block device. After some googling, I tried modprobe floppy, which installed it, but still no joy.
Anyone have a clue?
What file system is on them? Or did you do something like raw tar writes to them? If it is typical dos/window FAT, try the programs from the mtools package. mdir, mcopy, etc. I hate to fight with stuff like that so I'd probably use a windows box connected to a samba share to move things over.
-- Les Mikesell lesmikesell@gmail.com
On 04/07/13 16:04, Les Mikesell wrote:
On Sun, Apr 7, 2013 at 2:45 PM, mark m.roth@5-cent.us wrote:
Yes, really. I've got hundreds of the damn things here at home, and I want to go through them and get rid of them all.
But... to do that I want to read them. I have both a 5.25" and a 3.5" drive, both are plugged in, but in the BIOS, all I see is the 3.5". Fine, I figure I'll take care of those.
Nope. I see /dev/fd0 once I've booted up, but neither konqueror nor mount nor fdisk works - the latter telling me that /dev/fd0 is not a valid block device. After some googling, I tried modprobe floppy, which installed it, but still no joy.
Anyone have a clue?
What file system is on them? Or did you do something like raw tar writes to them? If it is typical dos/window FAT, try the programs from the mtools package. mdir, mcopy, etc. I hate to fight with stuff like that so I'd probably use a windows box connected to a samba share to move things over.
All of 'em are old DOS. Just tried mdir a:, and the same: can't open, can't initials A:. I really doubt the drives themselves are dead, but....
mark
On Sun, 07 Apr 2013 16:18:29 -0400 mark wrote:
All of 'em are old DOS. Just tried mdir a:, and the same: can't open, can't initials A:. I really doubt the drives themselves are dead, but....
Floppy disks have a finite usable life. Depending on where and how you have been storing them, they may be shot.
On 04/07/13 16:22, Frank Cox wrote:
On Sun, 07 Apr 2013 16:18:29 -0400 mark wrote:
All of 'em are old DOS. Just tried mdir a:, and the same: can't open, can't initials A:. I really doubt the drives themselves are dead, but....
Floppy disks have a finite usable life. Depending on where and how you have been storing them, they may be shot.
Yeah, but.... I tried three of 'em, three different OEM, and three ages, and they all give me fdisk saying it's not a valid block device.
Is it possibly that there's some driver missing?
mark
On Sun, 2013-04-07 at 16:43 -0400, mark wrote:
On 04/07/13 16:22, Frank Cox wrote:
Floppy disks have a finite usable life. Depending on where and how you have been storing them, they may be shot.
Yeah, but.... I tried three of 'em, three different OEM, and three ages, and they all give me fdisk saying it's not a valid block device.
If they were all written with the same drive it's also possible the head alignment had drifted which will make things...interesting.
Try formatting a scratch floppy to see if you can write. If that works but you still can't read, evidence that it's indeed an alignment mismatch.
On 04/07/13 17:11, Brian Miller wrote:
On Sun, 2013-04-07 at 16:43 -0400, mark wrote:
On 04/07/13 16:22, Frank Cox wrote:
Floppy disks have a finite usable life. Depending on where and how you have been storing them, they may be shot.
Yeah, but.... I tried three of 'em, three different OEM, and three ages, and they all give me fdisk saying it's not a valid block device.
If they were all written with the same drive it's also possible the head alignment had drifted which will make things...interesting.
Try formatting a scratch floppy to see if you can write. If that works but you still can't read, evidence that it's indeed an alignment mismatch.
These are many years of disks, written on many machines.
At any rate, I just tried mformat a:, and it tells me that it can't open /dev/fd0: No such device or address.
mark
On Sun, 07 Apr 2013 17:29:14 -0400 mark wrote:
At any rate, I just tried mformat a:, and it tells me that it can't open /dev/fd0: No such device or address.
ls -l /dev/fd?
What do you see?
On Sun, 7 Apr 2013, Frank Cox wrote:
On Sun, 07 Apr 2013 17:29:14 -0400 mark wrote:
At any rate, I just tried mformat a:, and it tells me that it can't open /dev/fd0: No such device or address.
ls -l /dev/fd?
What do you see?
It's been years since I used floppies on a linux system; but when I still hada 3.5 inch drive, I recall that I first had to put a floppy in, then do a mount command.
I realize that the contributors on this thread, as well as the originator, may take this is a given, but in the event this hasn't been done, and it's a way to get the disk readable (I haven't seen it mentioned yet as possible solution).
My two cents,
MP pyz@brama.com
On Sun, 7 Apr 2013 18:22:12 -0400 (EDT) Max Pyziur wrote:
I realize that the contributors on this thread, as well as the originator, may take this is a given, but in the event this hasn't been done, and it's a way to get the disk readable (I haven't seen it mentioned yet as possible solution).
mtools doesn't require that the disk be mounted.
On 04/07/13 17:49, Frank Cox wrote:
On Sun, 07 Apr 2013 17:29:14 -0400 mark wrote:
At any rate, I just tried mformat a:, and it tells me that it can't open /dev/fd0: No such device or address.
ls -l /dev/fd?
What do you see?
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 13 Apr 7 15:03 /dev/fd -> /proc/self/fd/
And, while we're at it, ll of /dev/floppy shows
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 3 Apr 7 15:03 /dev/floppy -> fd0
mark -- Fascism is an extreme right-wing ideology which embraces nationalism, xenophobia, militarism, and supremacist ideals. Though actually secular, it emphasizes mythic beliefs such as divine mandates; and concentrates power in the hands of an elite selected by, and often of, the wealthiest groups of society, from whom all authority flows to lesser elites, such as law enforcement, intellectuals, and the media.
On Sun, Apr 07, 2013 at 07:35:17PM -0400, mark wrote:
ls -l /dev/fd?
What do you see?
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 13 Apr 7 15:03 /dev/fd -> /proc/self/fd/
Interesting as that doesn't match the pattern /dev/fd?
And, while we're at it, ll of /dev/floppy shows
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 3 Apr 7 15:03 /dev/floppy -> fd0
fd0 should have been shown by the ls -l /dev/fd? pattern so is that a broken link?
"lsmod | grep floppy" - does it show the floppy module loaded?
If "ls -l /dev/fd0*" does not show a series of device nodes try:
"/sbin/MAKEDEV fd0"
and retry the operations that are failing.
If this still fails ensure that the device is enabled in the system's bios. Speaking of that, is the device seen at boot time?
"dmesg | grep ^Floppy" or "grep ^Floppy /var/log/dmesg" should show fd0 and a size.
John
On Sun, 7 Apr 2013 18:53:54 -0500 John R. Dennison wrote:
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 13 Apr 7 15:03 /dev/fd -> /proc/self/fd/
Interesting as that doesn't match the pattern /dev/fd?
Note that /dev/fd has nothing to do with floppy drives. /dev/fd deals with file descriptors, not floppy drives.
Just to avoid confusion.
On 04/07/13 19:53, John R. Dennison wrote:
On Sun, Apr 07, 2013 at 07:35:17PM -0400, mark wrote:
ls -l /dev/fd?
What do you see?
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 13 Apr 7 15:03 /dev/fd -> /proc/self/fd/
Interesting as that doesn't match the pattern /dev/fd?
And, while we're at it, ll of /dev/floppy shows
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 3 Apr 7 15:03 /dev/floppy -> fd0
fd0 should have been shown by the ls -l /dev/fd? pattern so is that a broken link?
"lsmod | grep floppy" - does it show the floppy module loaded?
If "ls -l /dev/fd0*" does not show a series of device nodes try:
"/sbin/MAKEDEV fd0"
and retry the operations that are failing.
If this still fails ensure that the device is enabled in the system's bios. Speaking of that, is the device seen at boot time?
"dmesg | grep ^Floppy" or "grep ^Floppy /var/log/dmesg" should show fd0 and a size.
Ok, ll /dev/fd - which is a directory - shows it pointing to /proc/self/fd/. Under tghat is 0-3, where 0-2 are links to /dev/pts/0, *all* the same. 3 is a link to /proc/5038/fd/, which does not exist.
Is it time to try MAKEDEV?
mark
Le 08/04/2013 02:23, mark a écrit :
On 04/07/13 19:53, John R. Dennison wrote:
On Sun, Apr 07, 2013 at 07:35:17PM -0400, mark wrote:
ls -l /dev/fd?
What do you see?
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 13 Apr 7 15:03 /dev/fd -> /proc/self/fd/
Interesting as that doesn't match the pattern /dev/fd?
fd0 should have been shown by the ls -l /dev/fd? pattern so is that a broken link?
Ok, ll /dev/fd - which is a directory - shows it pointing to /proc/self/fd/. Under tghat is 0-3, where 0-2 are links to /dev/pts/0, *all* the same. 3 is a link to /proc/5038/fd/, which does not exist.
you were asked to type ls -l /dev/fd? the question mark is part of what you have to type...
another poster explained that /dev/fd/ has nothing to do with floppies.
If this still fails ensure that the device is enabled in the system's bios. Speaking of that, is the device seen at boot time?
"dmesg | grep ^Floppy" or "grep ^Floppy /var/log/dmesg" should show fd0 and a size.
Is it time to try MAKEDEV?
maybe first try ls -l /dev/fd? and then dmesg
Note that I've had a lot of old floppies that were dead when I tried to read them after many years. For me, 3/3 isn't conclusive. I would try to read at least 10 or 20 floppies before deciding that it's a drive or driver issue.
On 04/08/13 04:43, Nicolas Thierry-Mieg wrote:
Le 08/04/2013 02:23, mark a écrit :
On 04/07/13 19:53, John R. Dennison wrote:
On Sun, Apr 07, 2013 at 07:35:17PM -0400, mark wrote:
ls -l /dev/fd?
What do you see?
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 13 Apr 7 15:03 /dev/fd -> /proc/self/fd/
Interesting as that doesn't match the pattern /dev/fd?
fd0 should have been shown by the ls -l /dev/fd? pattern so is that a broken link?
Ok, ll /dev/fd - which is a directory - shows it pointing to /proc/self/fd/. Under tghat is 0-3, where 0-2 are links to /dev/pts/0, *all* the same. 3 is a link to /proc/5038/fd/, which does not exist.
you were asked to type ls -l /dev/fd? the question mark is part of what you have to type...
Perhaps you didn't understand what I wrote in the paragraph that you cut out. **************************************
If "ls -l /dev/fd0*" does not show a series of device nodes try:
It does - /dev/fd0, along with all 14 sizes of floppies, of a patter /dev/fd0u<disk capacity> **************************************
Now, if that's not clear enough for you, let me rephrase: /dev/fd0 exists, as does the related ones, as far as I know (note that ll for me is aliased to "ls -laF").
brw-rw---- 1 mark floppy 2, 0 Apr 7 15:03 /dev/fd0 brw-rw---- 1 mark floppy 2, 84 Apr 7 15:03 /dev/fd0u1040 brw-rw---- 1 mark floppy 2, 88 Apr 7 15:03 /dev/fd0u1120 brw-rw---- 1 mark floppy 2, 28 Apr 7 15:03 /dev/fd0u1440 brw-rw---- 1 mark floppy 2, 44 Apr 7 15:03 /dev/fd0u1680 brw-rw---- 1 mark floppy 2, 60 Apr 7 15:03 /dev/fd0u1722 brw-rw---- 1 mark floppy 2, 76 Apr 7 15:03 /dev/fd0u1743 brw-rw---- 1 mark floppy 2, 96 Apr 7 15:03 /dev/fd0u1760 brw-rw---- 1 mark floppy 2, 116 Apr 7 15:03 /dev/fd0u1840 brw-rw---- 1 mark floppy 2, 100 Apr 7 15:03 /dev/fd0u1920 brw-rw---- 1 mark floppy 2, 12 Apr 7 15:03 /dev/fd0u360 brw-rw---- 1 mark floppy 2, 16 Apr 7 15:03 /dev/fd0u720 brw-rw---- 1 mark floppy 2, 120 Apr 7 15:03 /dev/fd0u800 brw-rw---- 1 mark floppy 2, 52 Apr 7 15:03 /dev/fd0u820 brw-rw---- 1 mark floppy 2, 68 Apr 7 15:03 /dev/fd0u830
Is that clear enough?
mark
On 04/07/13 19:53, John R. Dennison wrote:
On Sun, Apr 07, 2013 at 07:35:17PM -0400, mark wrote:
ls -l /dev/fd?
What do you see?
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 13 Apr 7 15:03 /dev/fd -> /proc/self/fd/
Interesting as that doesn't match the pattern /dev/fd?
And, while we're at it, ll of /dev/floppy shows
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 3 Apr 7 15:03 /dev/floppy -> fd0
fd0 should have been shown by the ls -l /dev/fd? pattern so is that a broken link?
"lsmod | grep floppy" - does it show the floppy module loaded?
If "ls -l /dev/fd0*" does not show a series of device nodes try:
It does - /dev/fd0, along with all 14 sizes of floppies, of a patter /dev/fd0u<disk capacity> <snip> mark
On 04/07/2013 07:26 PM, mark wrote:
On 04/07/13 19:53, John R. Dennison wrote:
On Sun, Apr 07, 2013 at 07:35:17PM -0400, mark wrote:
ls -l /dev/fd?
What do you see?
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 13 Apr 7 15:03 /dev/fd -> /proc/self/fd/
Interesting as that doesn't match the pattern /dev/fd?
And, while we're at it, ll of /dev/floppy shows
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 3 Apr 7 15:03 /dev/floppy -> fd0
fd0 should have been shown by the ls -l /dev/fd? pattern so is that a broken link?
"lsmod | grep floppy" - does it show the floppy module loaded?
If "ls -l /dev/fd0*" does not show a series of device nodes try:
It does - /dev/fd0, along with all 14 sizes of floppies, of a patter /dev/fd0u<disk capacity>
<snip>
I saw in an earlier part of the thread, you were trying to do things to A: ... A: is a windows device, not a Linux device
Make sure you are trying to do things to /dev/fd0 and not A:
Johnny Hughes wrote: <snip>
I saw in an earlier part of the thread, you were trying to do things to A: ... A: is a windows device, not a Linux device
Make sure you are trying to do things to /dev/fd0 and not A:
Oh, of course. I was trying mdir, I think - that's an mtools thing - they use a: internally to represent /dev/fd0.
mark
On Mon, Apr 8, 2013 at 10:19 AM, Johnny Hughes johnny@centos.org wrote:
If "ls -l /dev/fd0*" does not show a series of device nodes try:
It does - /dev/fd0, along with all 14 sizes of floppies, of a patter /dev/fd0u<disk capacity>
<snip>
I saw in an earlier part of the thread, you were trying to do things to A: ... A: is a windows device, not a Linux device
Make sure you are trying to do things to /dev/fd0 and not A:
That was in the context of the 'mtools' programs - which do map the devices to dos-like letters but failed in the same way with a problem with the underlying device. But as someone else mentioned, if 2 drives are plugged in, it may be trying the wrong device.
-- Les Mikesell lesmikesell@gmail.com
On 4/8/2013 9:00 AM, Les Mikesell wrote:
That was in the context of the 'mtools' programs - which do map the devices to dos-like letters but failed in the same way with a problem with the underlying device. But as someone else mentioned, if 2 drives are plugged in, it may be trying the wrong device.
if I remember correctly, PC floppies require a cable with a twisted bit in it. both drives are jumpered for disk1, and the flip makes the end drive disk0 if you used a straight through ribbon cable and both drives were jumpered for the default, then they would have collided and not worked.
its been 10 years since I've hooked one up, so this is from old memories.
mark <m.roth@...> writes:
On 04/07/13 16:22, Frank Cox wrote:
On Sun, 07 Apr 2013 16:18:29 -0400 mark wrote:
All of 'em are old DOS. Just tried mdir a:, and the same: can't open, can't initials A:. I really doubt the drives themselves are dead, but....
Floppy disks have a finite usable life. Depending on where and how you have been storing them, they may be shot.
Yeah, but.... I tried three of 'em, three different OEM, and three ages, and they all give me fdisk saying it's not a valid block device.
Is it possibly that there's some driver missing?
Floppy drives also have a limited lifetime. Are you sure the drive itself (not the disk) is good?
I also have a bunch of old floppies and try to keep at least one system with a working floppy drive. I see:
[dave@waste ~]# ls /dev/fd* /dev/fd@ /dev/fd0u1120 /dev/fd0u1722 /dev/fd0u1840 /dev/fd0u720 /dev/fd0u830 /dev/fd0 /dev/fd0u1440 /dev/fd0u1743 /dev/fd0u1920 /dev/fd0u800 /dev/fd0u1040 /dev/fd0u1680 /dev/fd0u1760 /dev/fd0u360 /dev/fd0u820 [dave@waste ~]# ls -l /dev/floppy lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 3 Apr 3 17:17 /dev/floppy -> fd0 [dave@waste ~]# lsmod | grep floppy floppy 57125 0
on that system and it reads and writes floppies.
Cheers, Dave
On Mon, 8 Apr 2013, David G. Miller wrote:
mark <m.roth@...> writes:
On 04/07/13 16:22, Frank Cox wrote:
On Sun, 07 Apr 2013 16:18:29 -0400 mark wrote:
All of 'em are old DOS. Just tried mdir a:, and the same: can't open, can't initials A:. I really doubt the drives themselves are dead, but....
Floppy disks have a finite usable life. Depending on where and how you have been storing them, they may be shot.
Yeah, but.... I tried three of 'em, three different OEM, and three ages, and they all give me fdisk saying it's not a valid block device.
Is it possibly that there's some driver missing?
Floppy drives also have a limited lifetime. Are you sure the drive itself (not the disk) is good?
I also have a bunch of old floppies and try to keep at least one system with a working floppy drive. I see:
[dave@waste ~]# ls /dev/fd* /dev/fd@ /dev/fd0u1120 /dev/fd0u1722 /dev/fd0u1840 /dev/fd0u720 /dev/fd0u830 /dev/fd0 /dev/fd0u1440 /dev/fd0u1743 /dev/fd0u1920 /dev/fd0u800 /dev/fd0u1040 /dev/fd0u1680 /dev/fd0u1760 /dev/fd0u360 /dev/fd0u820 [dave@waste ~]# ls -l /dev/floppy lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 3 Apr 3 17:17 /dev/floppy -> fd0 [dave@waste ~]# lsmod | grep floppy floppy 57125 0
on that system and it reads and writes floppies.
Any chance that we could see your /etc/fstab, at least those lines regarding floppies?
Or is that personal?
Cheers, Dave
Max Pyziur pyz@brama.com
Max Pyziur wrote:
On Mon, 8 Apr 2013, David G. Miller wrote:
mark <m.roth@...> writes:
On 04/07/13 16:22, Frank Cox wrote:
On Sun, 07 Apr 2013 16:18:29 -0400 mark wrote:
All of 'em are old DOS. Just tried mdir a:, and the same: can't open, can't initials A:. I really doubt the drives themselves are dead, but....
Floppy disks have a finite usable life. Depending on where and how you have been storing them, they may be shot.
*shrug* In houses, apts, where I live, not in storage (except possibly for a couple months, and that was all climate-controlled storage). <snip>
Is it possibly that there's some driver missing?
Floppy drives also have a limited lifetime. Are you sure the drive itself (not the disk) is good?
That I don't know, and was trying to think of a way to test it. As I noted in another post, the 5.25" light seems to stay on, and I *think* that was the one I had disconnected before. I also think I mentioned that after bringing it down, connecting, and rebooting, I looked at the BIOS, and it told me it *only* saw the 3.5" drive. <snip>
Any chance that we could see your /etc/fstab, at least those lines regarding floppies?
Or is that personal?
a) Not at home. b) Not really relevant, since I don't have a floppy entry in it, just my h/d partitions.
It *looks* like udev knows about it, since it created /dev/fd0 and the related devices.
Btw, I updated before I brought it down, so it's on current 5.9.
mark mark
On Mon, 2013-04-08 at 12:21 -0400, m.roth@5-cent.us wrote:
That I don't know, and was trying to think of a way to test it. As I noted in another post, the 5.25" light seems to stay on, and I *think* that was the one I had disconnected before. I also think I mentioned that after bringing it down, connecting, and rebooting, I looked at the BIOS, and it told me it *only* saw the 3.5" drive.
<snip>
That is why I thought of the cable/drive issue. Please keep in mind that the bios versions I recall did not detect a drive unless it was told that there was one (you had to even specify the type/ format of the drive)
Any chance that
It *looks* like udev knows about it, since it created /dev/fd0 and the related devices.
From what I recall, the OS gets the information on what is there from
the bios. Look around in the bios and check if you can specify the format of the floppy drives somewhere... And the comment about checking if the cable has been put on upside down (on either side). Please note tat the twist in the cable sits between drive a and b. Still 4 possibilities to try.
Louis
Louis Lagendijk wrote:
On Mon, 2013-04-08 at 12:21 -0400, m.roth@5-cent.us wrote:
That I don't know, and was trying to think of a way to test it. As I noted in another post, the 5.25" light seems to stay on, and I *think*
that
was the one I had disconnected before. I also think I mentioned that after bringing it down, connecting, and rebooting, I looked at the BIOS, and it told me it *only* saw the 3.5" drive.
<snip>
That is why I thought of the cable/drive issue. Please keep in mind that the bios versions I recall did not detect a drive unless it was told that there was one (you had to even specify the type/ format of the drive)
Any chance that
It *looks* like udev knows about it, since it created /dev/fd0 and the related devices.
From what I recall, the OS gets the information on what is there from
the bios. Look around in the bios and check if you can specify the format of the floppy drives somewhere... And the comment about checking if the cable has been put on upside down (on either side). Please note tat the twist in the cable sits between drive a and b. Still 4 possibilities to try.
OH! I thought, since the m/b is from '05 or '06, that it would detect the floppy drives, but *that* I need to look at. Thanks!
mark
On 4/8/2013 9:57 AM, m.roth@5-cent.us wrote:
OH! I thought, since the m/b is from '05 or '06, that it would detect the floppy drives, but*that* I need to look at. Thanks!
the floppy interface was really low level. all parallel signals, like select drive, step, direction, head select, serial data, clock, write enable, and a status line for home, and index (the hole in the disk that said its at sector 0).
the ONLY way to detect a drive is connected was to STEP outwards 100 times, checking for the 'home' status each time, this takes several seconds per drive. AFAIK, there was no way electrically to tell the difference between drive types, unless there's a reliable disk in the drive. so the BIOS's pretty much stopped doing the auto-home-and-detect thing early on when floppies became optional because it was /so/ slow and added significant time to POST. and even from the very beginning, you have to configure the BIOS for the drive types (heck, early hard disks had to be configured in the BIOS too)
John R Pierce wrote:
On 4/8/2013 9:57 AM, m.roth@5-cent.us wrote:
OH! I thought, since the m/b is from '05 or '06, that it would detect the floppy drives, but*that* I need to look at. Thanks!
the floppy interface was really low level. all parallel signals, like select drive, step, direction, head select, serial data, clock, write enable, and a status line for home, and index (the hole in the disk that said its at sector 0).
<snip>
drive. so the BIOS's pretty much stopped doing the auto-home-and-detect thing early on when floppies became optional because it was /so/ slow and added significant time to POST. and even
<snip> But post, if memory check is enabled, *does* take a long time... oh, that's right, that was on the server with ->256G<-....
mark "and my mind SEGV's whenever I say that"
On 04/08/13 12:55, Louis Lagendijk wrote:
On Mon, 2013-04-08 at 12:21 -0400, m.roth@5-cent.us wrote:
That I don't know, and was trying to think of a way to test it. As I noted in another post, the 5.25" light seems to stay on, and I *think* that was the one I had disconnected before. I also think I mentioned that after bringing it down, connecting, and rebooting, I looked at the BIOS, and it told me it *only* saw the 3.5" drive.
<snip>
That is why I thought of the cable/drive issue. Please keep in mind that the bios versions I recall did not detect a drive unless it was told that there was one (you had to even specify the type/ format of the drive)
Any chance that
<snip>
You gents nailed it. I brought my machine down again, and set the BIOS to see the 1.2M as a, and the 1.44 as b: while it was down, before I did that, I looked... I'm sure the cable was on, but it's really hard to see the open side of the case still covers about a third of the board, and with all the cables.... Pulling out my trusty minimag, and moving cables... and it was upside down. I don't know how it got on that way, certainly I wouldn't have forced it, but flipped it over, and played with the BIOS... the 3.5" drive still doesn't work... but the 1.2M floppy, as b: *does* work - light goes on only when I try to read it, and not otherwise.
Now I don't know if I have a drive cleaner, since I can't believe none of the first 10 or so disks I tried to look at was readable.
But I'm over the first hump. Now I'm playing with /dev/fd1 and /dev/floppy-fd1 (and why is it trying to read a superblock when I try to mount it, when I've said -t msdos? Oh, well, onward in the fight.)
mark
mark <m.roth@...> writes:
<SNIP>
But I'm over the first hump. Now I'm playing with /dev/fd1 and /dev/floppy-fd1 (and why is it trying to read a superblock when I try to mount it, when I've said -t msdos? Oh, well, onward in the fight.)
mark
I think mount uses the same error string (possibly from ERRNO) whenever it can't find the appropriate file system structure on a device. Thus, you get "Unable to read superblock" even when mount -t msdos is looking for a FAT and FAT root directory.
Cheers, Dave
David G. Miller wrote:
mark <m.roth@...> writes:
<SNIP> > But I'm over the first hump. Now I'm playing with /dev/fd1 and > /dev/floppy-fd1 (and why is it trying to read a superblock when I try to > mount it, when I've said -t msdos? Oh, well, onward in the fight.) > I think mount uses the same error string (possibly from ERRNO) whenever it can't find the appropriate file system structure on a device. Thus, you get "Unable to read superblock" even when mount -t msdos is looking for
a FAT
and FAT root directory.
Hmmm... didn't see it mounted, but I'll try more tonight. Last night included a) playing with system, and b) finishing up our federal taxes....
mark "and getting a headache"
On Tue, 9 Apr 2013 10:19:33 -0400 m.roth@5-cent.us wrote:
Hmmm... didn't see it mounted, but I'll try more tonight. Last night included a) playing with system, and b) finishing up our federal taxes....
If you're going to use mtools to do your copying, you don't need to mount the disks.
Frank Cox wrote:
On Tue, 9 Apr 2013 10:19:33 -0400 m.roth@5-cent.us wrote:
Hmmm... didn't see it mounted, but I'll try more tonight. Last night included a) playing with system, and b) finishing up our federal taxes....
If you're going to use mtools to do your copying, you don't need to mount the disks.
mtools is a desperation move, since I haven't actually read anything from anything yet. As I mentioned, I *may* have an old drive head cleaner somewhere - since it's not been used in about a decade, I'm thinking of corrosion or crud.
I also can't seem to find the USB 3.5" drive I borrowed - lsusb sees it (at least since the last reboot), but trying to find it to mount it is something I'm still digging at, and I doubt mtools can find it.
mark
On Tue, Apr 09, 2013 at 12:21:10PM -0400, m.roth@5-cent.us wrote:
Frank Cox wrote:
On Tue, 9 Apr 2013 10:19:33 -0400 m.roth@5-cent.us wrote:
Hmmm... didn't see it mounted, but I'll try more tonight. Last night included a) playing with system, and b) finishing up our federal taxes....
If you're going to use mtools to do your copying, you don't need to mount the disks.
mtools is a desperation move, since I haven't actually read anything from anything yet. As I mentioned, I *may* have an old drive head cleaner somewhere - since it's not been used in about a decade, I'm thinking of corrosion or crud.
I also can't seem to find the USB 3.5" drive I borrowed - lsusb sees it (at least since the last reboot), but trying to find it to mount it is something I'm still digging at, and I doubt mtools can find it.
mark
As far as I remember (I'm not as young as I used to be, and it's been a while), the 3.5" USB floppy drive here would recognize a (formatted) floppy when inserted and mount it automatically, on Centos 5.x. (assuming it contained a recognizable filesystem...)
now that I"m running 6.4, I haven't tried the floppy drive yet.
(I have piles and stacks and drawers of 5.25 and 3.5 inch floppies with various stuff stored on 'em. I used that usb drive (and an internal 5.25 inch drive) to grab images of all of them (with dd) which I'll eventually organize and burn onto CD or DVD, so I can get rid of all the floppies.)
Fred
Fred Smith wrote:
On Tue, Apr 09, 2013 at 12:21:10PM -0400, m.roth@5-cent.us wrote:
Frank Cox wrote:
On Tue, 9 Apr 2013 10:19:33 -0400 m.roth@5-cent.us wrote:
Hmmm... didn't see it mounted, but I'll try more tonight. Last night included a) playing with system, and b) finishing up our federal taxes....
<snip>
I also can't seem to find the USB 3.5" drive I borrowed - lsusb sees it (at least since the last reboot), but trying to find it to mount it is something I'm still digging at, and I doubt mtools can find it.
As far as I remember (I'm not as young as I used to be, and it's been a while), the 3.5" USB floppy drive here would recognize a (formatted) floppy when inserted and mount it automatically, on Centos 5.x. (assuming it contained a recognizable filesystem...)
Even if there's nothing about floppies in /etc/fstab? Or is that something I need to configure for autofs?
now that I"m running 6.4, I haven't tried the floppy drive yet.
(I have piles and stacks and drawers of 5.25 and 3.5 inch floppies with various stuff stored on 'em. I used that usb drive (and an internal 5.25 inch drive) to grab images of all of them (with dd) which I'll eventually organize and burn onto CD or DVD, so I can get rid of all the floppies.)
Exactly my goal right now.
mark
On Tue, Apr 9, 2013 at 12:46 PM, m.roth@5-cent.us wrote:
(I have piles and stacks and drawers of 5.25 and 3.5 inch floppies with various stuff stored on 'em. I used that usb drive (and an internal 5.25 inch drive) to grab images of all of them (with dd) which I'll eventually organize and burn onto CD or DVD, so I can get rid of all the floppies.)
Exactly my goal right now.
Do you get anything (besides an error) if you try to dd the device to a file?
-- Les Mikesell lesmikesell@gmail.com
Les Mikesell wrote:
On Tue, Apr 9, 2013 at 12:46 PM, m.roth@5-cent.us wrote:
(I have piles and stacks and drawers of 5.25 and 3.5 inch floppies with various stuff stored on 'em. I used that usb drive (and an internal 5.25 inch drive) to grab images of all of them (with dd) which I'll eventually organize and burn onto CD or DVD, so I can get rid of all the floppies.)
Exactly my goal right now.
Do you get anything (besides an error) if you try to dd the device to a file?
I sorta-kinda tried that, and got zero bytes. I can try it again, more seriously, tonight.
mark
On Tue, Apr 09, 2013 at 01:46:09PM -0400, m.roth@5-cent.us wrote:
Fred Smith wrote:
On Tue, Apr 09, 2013 at 12:21:10PM -0400, m.roth@5-cent.us wrote:
Frank Cox wrote:
On Tue, 9 Apr 2013 10:19:33 -0400 m.roth@5-cent.us wrote:
Hmmm... didn't see it mounted, but I'll try more tonight. Last night included a) playing with system, and b) finishing up our federal taxes....
<snip> >> I also can't seem to find the USB 3.5" drive I borrowed - lsusb sees it >> (at least since the last reboot), but trying to find it to mount it is >> something I'm still digging at, and I doubt mtools can find it. > > As far as I remember (I'm not as young as I used to be, and it's been a > while), the 3.5" USB floppy drive here would recognize a (formatted) > floppy when inserted and mount it automatically, on Centos 5.x. > (assuming it contained a recognizable filesystem...)
Even if there's nothing about floppies in /etc/fstab? Or is that something I need to configure for autofs?
As far as I can remember, yes.
now that I"m running 6.4, I haven't tried the floppy drive yet.
I'll try it on the 6.4 system that's now running on that box and see what happens.
(I have piles and stacks and drawers of 5.25 and 3.5 inch floppies with various stuff stored on 'em. I used that usb drive (and an internal 5.25 inch drive) to grab images of all of them (with dd) which I'll eventually organize and burn onto CD or DVD, so I can get rid of all the floppies.)
Exactly my goal right now.
mark
-----Original Message----- From: m.roth@5-cent.us [mailto:m.roth@5-cent.us] Sent: Tuesday, April 09, 2013 12:21 To: CentOS mailing list Subject: Re: [CentOS] floppy drives
Frank Cox wrote:
On Tue, 9 Apr 2013 10:19:33 -0400 m.roth@5-cent.us wrote:
Hmmm... didn't see it mounted, but I'll try more tonight. Last night included a) playing with system, and b) finishing up our federal taxes....
If you're going to use mtools to do your copying, you don't need to
mount
the disks.
mtools is a desperation move, since I haven't actually read anything from anything yet. As I mentioned, I *may* have an old drive head cleaner somewhere - since it's not been used in about a decade, I'm thinking of corrosion or crud.
I also can't seem to find the USB 3.5" drive I borrowed - lsusb sees it (at least since the last reboot), but trying to find it to mount it is something I'm still digging at, and I doubt mtools can find it.
mark
Note: the USB floppy may be showing up as /dev/sd[bcd...n] At least that is what happened when I used one on RHEL/CentOS5 a while back.
I suggest unplugging the USB floppy, execute `ls /dev/sd* /dev/fd*`, plug it in and execute `ls /dev/sd* /dev/fd*`, and then note the differences.
{there are probably hal/udev/inotify games you could do, but I like old fashioned things.}
Even when this disclaimer is not here: I am not a contracting officer. I do not have authority to make or modify the terms of any contract.
Denniston, Todd A CIV NAVSURFWARCENDIV Crane wrote:
From: m.roth@5-cent.us [mailto:m.roth@5-cent.us] Frank Cox wrote:
On Tue, 9 Apr 2013 10:19:33 -0400 m.roth@5-cent.us wrote:
Hmmm... didn't see it mounted, but I'll try more tonight. Last night included a) playing with system, and b) finishing up our federal taxes....
<snip>
I also can't seem to find the USB 3.5" drive I borrowed - lsusb sees it (at least since the last reboot), but trying to find it to mount it is something I'm still digging at, and I doubt mtools can find it.
Note: the USB floppy may be showing up as /dev/sd[bcd...n] At least that is what happened when I used one on RHEL/CentOS5 a while back.
I would think, but don't remember seeing it.
I suggest unplugging the USB floppy, execute `ls /dev/sd* /dev/fd*`, plug it in and execute `ls /dev/sd* /dev/fd*`, and then note the differences.
Think I tried that, as well as leaving the USB drive in when I bounced the system to reset the BIOS. USB storage annoys me, half the time it's try to find it, the camera card being a prime example. I'll try it this evening, since we *finally* finished all the taxes last night (MD is nasty: their downloadable pdf forms are encrypted, so not only is it not saveable after you enter data, like the fed forms are, but you cannot use either print to CUPS-pdf, nor can you print to a file, then use ps2pdf....)
{there are probably hal/udev/inotify games you could do, but I like old fashioned things.}
Hmmm, don't know them. rescan-scsi-bus... no, I don't *think* that will register the USB, and I think I mentioned that lsusb shows me the drive, but I can't identify the driver. Now that I have some time, I'll dig deeper.
Even when this disclaimer is not here: I am not a contracting officer. I do not have authority to make or modify the terms of any contract.
I have a very long disclaimer from my late wife at home, along the lines of "this does not reflect the views of my employer, the US government, or even the view out my window (which I don't have)...."
mark
On Sun, 2013-04-07 at 15:45 -0400, mark wrote:
Yes, really. I've got hundreds of the damn things here at home, and I want to go through them and get rid of them all.
But... to do that I want to read them. I have both a 5.25" and a 3.5" drive, both are plugged in, but in the BIOS, all I see is the 3.5". Fine, I figure I'll take care of those.
Nope. I see /dev/fd0 once I've booted up, but neither konqueror nor mount nor fdisk works - the latter telling me that /dev/fd0 is not a valid block device. After some googling, I tried modprobe floppy, which installed it, but still no joy.
Anyone have a clue?
mark
Mark, you said that both floppy drives are connected. Could it be that both are wired to fd0? One drive could be malfunctioning.... Try with only one drive connected at a time at the end of the cable and see if that helps... Louis
Hi, Louis,
Louis Lagendijk wrote:
On Sun, 2013-04-07 at 15:45 -0400, mark wrote:
Yes, really. I've got hundreds of the damn things here at home, and I want to go through them and get rid of them all.
But... to do that I want to read them. I have both a 5.25" and a 3.5" drive, both are plugged in, but in the BIOS, all I see is the 3.5". Fine, I figure I'll take care of those.
Nope. I see /dev/fd0 once I've booted up, but neither konqueror nor mount nor fdisk works - the latter telling me that /dev/fd0 is not a valid block device. After some googling, I tried modprobe floppy, which installed it, but still no joy.
Anyone have a clue?
Mark, you said that both floppy drives are connected. Could it be that both are wired to fd0? One drive could be malfunctioning.... Try with only one drive connected at a time at the end of the cable and see if that helps...
Good thought... but I think I had one of them disconnected before I took my system down yesterday and connected both. I will note that the 5.25" one's light does seem to stay on, regardless.
I was speaking about it to my manager this morning, and he pulls out a 3.5" USB drive I can borrow, so I'll take my system down, pull the 3.5", and see what I see.
mark
On 4/8/2013 7:58 AM, m.roth@5-cent.us wrote:
Good thought... but I think I had one of them disconnected before I took my system down yesterday and connected both. I will note that the 5.25" one's light does seem to stay on, regardless.
OH. another rusty old memory. if you plugged a floppy cable in upside down (only possible if the cable wasn't keyed, but I remember quite a few that werent), it grounded both drive select and write select, and the drive would write nulls (or something) all over any track that was seeked to, without even sector formatting. this would, of course, erase any disk you inserted. also, the LED would stay on.
John R Pierce wrote:
On 4/8/2013 7:58 AM, m.roth@5-cent.us wrote:
Good thought... but I think I had one of them disconnected before I took my system down yesterday and connected both. I will note that the 5.25" one's light does seem to stay on, regardless.
OH. another rusty old memory. if you plugged a floppy cable in upside down (only possible if the cable wasn't keyed, but I remember quite a few that werent), it grounded both drive select and write select, and the drive would write nulls (or something) all over any track that was seeked to, without even sector formatting. this would, of course, erase any disk you inserted. also, the LED would stay on.
I *think* these cables are keyed - they're "relatively" new, but I'll check. I still think I had the 5.25 power on, but not the cable.... Something to check this evening.
On Mon, 8 Apr 2013, Louis Lagendijk wrote:
On Sun, 2013-04-07 at 15:45 -0400, mark wrote:
Yes, really. I've got hundreds of the damn things here at home, and I want to go through them and get rid of them all.
But... to do that I want to read them. I have both a 5.25" and a 3.5" drive, both are plugged in, but in the BIOS, all I see is the 3.5". Fine, I figure I'll take care of those.
Nope. I see /dev/fd0 once I've booted up, but neither konqueror nor mount nor fdisk works - the latter telling me that /dev/fd0 is not a valid block device. After some googling, I tried modprobe floppy, which installed it, but still no joy.
Anyone have a clue?
mark
Mark, you said that both floppy drives are connected. Could it be that both are wired to fd0? One drive could be malfunctioning.... Try with only one drive connected at a time at the end of the cable and see if that helps... Louis
Separately, on some Ubuntu boards there has been discussion about a program called udisks for disk-related issues. It is available for CentOS 6, not for CentOS 5. Where "mount" commands have failed, udisks for these Ubuntu users has come through.
Ironically, this discussion got me interested in whether or not the floppy drive on a home server running CentOS 5 is accessible via CentOS5. It isn't; no heartbreak, just a mild annoyance.
Max Pyziur pyz@brama.com
On Sun, Apr 7, 2013 at 2:45 PM, mark m.roth@5-cent.us wrote:
Yes, really. I've got hundreds of the damn things here at home, and I want to go through them and get rid of them all.
But... to do that I want to read them. I have both a 5.25" and a 3.5" drive, both are plugged in, but in the BIOS, all I see is the 3.5". Fine, I figure I'll take care of those.
Nope. I see /dev/fd0 once I've booted up, but neither konqueror nor mount nor fdisk works - the latter telling me that /dev/fd0 is not a valid block device. After some googling, I tried modprobe floppy, which installed it, but still no joy.
Anyone have a clue?
To debug this, I'd do the following:
1. Remove both USB plugs (I assume that these floppies are USB connected) 2. Reboot 3. Plug just one in, then do lsusb and get the end of /var/log/messages One of these might tell you where the floppy is connected in /dev. It might not be /dev/fd0 4. If it doesn't show up immediately, try putting in a floppy disk and do 3 again. 5. If it doesn't show up again, then it's probably dead. 6. If it does show, perhaps at /dev/sdb1, then create a file .mtoolsrc: # USB drive drive u: file="/dev/sdb1" Then do mdir u:
Of course, it will probably show up at /dev/fd<n>.
Just my pre-tax 2 cents.
Dale Dellutri wrote:
On Sun, Apr 7, 2013 at 2:45 PM, mark m.roth@5-cent.us wrote:
Yes, really. I've got hundreds of the damn things here at home, and I want to go through them and get rid of them all.
But... to do that I want to read them. I have both a 5.25" and a 3.5" drive, both are plugged in, but in the BIOS, all I see is the 3.5". Fine, I figure I'll take care of those.
Nope. I see /dev/fd0 once I've booted up, but neither konqueror nor mount nor fdisk works - the latter telling me that /dev/fd0 is not a valid block device. After some googling, I tried modprobe floppy, which installed it, but still no joy.
Anyone have a clue?
To debug this, I'd do the following:
- Remove both USB plugs (I assume that these floppies are USB connected)
Wrong assumption. They're on the FD cable to the m/b. I've got some *old* hardware.... <snip>
Of course, it will probably show up at /dev/fd<n>.
Just my pre-tax 2 cents.
I'll tell my wife, who's working on the taxes, to include that as income.... <g>
mark
-
Brian Miller -
Dale Dellutri -
David G. Miller -
Denniston, Todd A CIV NAVSURFWARCENDIV Crane -
Frank Cox -
Fred Smith -
John R Pierce -
John R. Dennison -
Johnny Hughes -
Les Mikesell -
Louis Lagendijk -
m.roth＠5-cent.us -
mark
-
Max Pyziur -
Nicolas Thierry-Mieg