Floppy drive not working

English Hardware
#1

Is there a way to get the floppy drive working or to (easily for a Linux illiterate like me) to find out what’s going on with it?

I’ve noticed that, in Dolphin, the floppy drive has a Pause symbol on it:

http://diamantstudios.ca/Gemeines/Bilder/Examples/floppy_issue--002.png

This is what I get when I try to access it (Thunar file manager):

http://diamantstudios.ca/Gemeines/Bilder/Examples/floppy_issue--001.png

Thanks in advance.

SUSE Leap 42.1, BTW.

#2

I haven’t had the need to access this type of hardware for nearly 20 years or so, so can only offer general advice.

Does the following work?

udisksctl mount -b /dev/fd0 -t vfat

*Change the filesystem to match the disk formatting.

#3

Nope, it didn’t work. Got a similar message on the console as on the graphic interface:

“Error mounting /dev/fd0: GDBus.Error: org.freedesktop.UDisks2.Error.Failed: Error mounting /dev/fd0 at /run/media/Alberich/disk: Command-line `mount -t “vfat” -o “uhelper=udisks2,nodev,nosuid,uid=1000,gid=100,shortname=mixed,utf8=1,showexec,flush” “/dev/fd0” “/run/media/Alberich/disk”’ exited with non-zero exit status 32: mount: /dev/fd0 is not a valid block device”

:frowning:

#4

Is the floppy disk formatted? Hardware ok?

dmesg | grep -i floppy
#5

Got the same message as above.

The media is fine. An old Win98 laptop reads it fine.

Shall try a different drive (I think I have a brand new one lying around) and report back.

#6

From the dmesg output? I would have expected to see some details about the floppy disk hardware and maybe the inserted disk itself.

The hwinfo command can also be used to get pertinent info…

/usr/sbin/hwinfo --floppy

The media is fine. An old Win98 laptop reads it fine.

Shall try a different drive (I think I have a brand new one lying around) and report back.

Yes, good idea.

#7

Well, yeah, looks like my old NEC floppy flopped.

I put in a brand new one and it’s mounted, but alas, it won’t read the files in the disks. Wonder if it’s because they were created using Windows. Any way around this?

I have like 20+ disks whose data I need to copy out and burn onto a CD. I was hoping using my SUSE machine, as my Win7 one doesn’t have a floppy anymore and using the ancient laptop would be slower.

#8

This is what I get when I run the command:

02: Floppy 00.0: 10603 Floppy Disk                              
  [Created at floppy.127]
  Unique ID: sPPV.oZ89vuho4Y3
  Parent ID: rdCR.3wRL2_g4d2B
  Hardware Class: floppy
  Model: "Floppy Disk"
  Device File: /dev/fd0
  Size: 3.5 ''
  Size: 2880 sectors a 512 bytes
  Capacity: 0 GB (1474560 bytes)
  Drive status: no medium
  Config Status: cfg=new, avail=yes, need=no, active=unknown                                                                                                                                                   
  Attached to: #1 (Floppy disk controller)

Thunar shews the floppy as blank, but there are files there.

#9

No surprised about this finding.

I put in a brand new one and it’s mounted, but alas, it won’t read the files in the disks. Wonder if it’s because they were created using Windows. Any way around this?

msdos format perhaps?

If you try mounting as root eg

mkdir /mnt/floppy

then

mount /dev/fd0 /mnt/floppy

or perhaps

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

Are the files present?

dir /mnt/floppy
#10

The basic mnt command seems to be working. Thanks a lot.

Apparently, I have to mount every floppy I insert. Is this the normal way in Linux? (Not complaining, just wondering).

#11

Yes, that’s as expected.