On Mon, 8 Apr 2013, David G. Miller wrote: > mark <m.roth at ...> 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 at 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 at waste ~]# ls -l /dev/floppy > lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 3 Apr 3 17:17 /dev/floppy -> fd0 > [dave at 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 at brama.com