USB floppy device can't read

English Install/Boot/Login
1

Dear all,
I need to read some legacy floppy disks (3,5") which have been written a long time ago by Windows systems. I have a TEAC USB floppy-disk drive, and I have a test disk that I can read with a floppy disk drive included in a Windows computer. Actually, I want to read it on one of my openSuSE systems.
Unfortunately, the drive does not work. If I plug it into a USB slot, the device notifier pups up, OK telling me that I am not authorized to mount. I repated this as root. Now the device notifier says “Acessing …”, but after some time, again tells “You are not authorized to mount this device”.
Command lsblk shows at this point /dev/sdc as type “disk” without a mount point.
Command

mount /dev/sdc /mnt/floppy

takes a long time (several minutes) while the device is working, and after that lsblk shows the mount point. In addition,

lsblk -f

shows


# lsblk -f
NAME              FSTYPE      LABEL UUID                                   FSAVAIL FSUSE% MOUNTPOINT
sda
├─sda1            ext4              e920a247-b5d0-4199-a405-b66d18258c0e    373.2M    16% /boot
└─sda2            crypto_LUKS       bc3591c6-6bfc-447d-8ece-adf87c08d6ba
  └─cr-auto-1     LVM2_member       SDwntq-ohW4-ZpjL-wclp-CeDG-1f8p-Tp5ltx
    ├─system-root ext4              3ecdd803-a53a-469a-99a0-a8f8ffb68103       26G    28% /
    ├─system-swap swap              e2fc9a10-00a8-481b-b2fc-ba6a7e8d4b09
    └─system-home ext4              4b3d9794-d54b-4efa-a557-f5eccd67f797    353.4G     9% /home
sdc                                                                           1.2M    13% /mnt/floppy
sr0

Then,

ls /mnt/floppy

gets the device working, but nothing is shown,

ls -a /mnt/floppy

shows only

.

and

..

.

I would appreciate any ideas on how to get the floppy disk drive to work and to test further. I am happy to provide any additional information.

Thanks and best regards
Bernd

2

I do not know an answer, but please do not make your post so difficult to read. Specaily the next part illustrates this:

Do not cut this in parts that obfuscate what you saw on the terminal. Copy/paste including the prompt/command line, all ouput and up to inclusing the next prompt, Example:

henk@boven:~> ls -a /mnt
.  ..
henk@boven:~>

Only so do we see what you did and saw. Not much comment needed. Quicker to post, quicker to read and better to interprete.

3

I am afraid we need more information on what you did and experienced.

I assume you are then logged in in the GUI. What desktop? Does the device notifier tell you so at it firsts pop-up, or after you clicked something? I do not have enough fantasy to fill in all you leave out of the description.

This sounds as if you logged in in the GUI as root. Either I misunderstand, or that is something you should never do.

Where is that output? Do not tell, bit show!

Again skipping informationa and not showing. Did you create the directory /mnt/floppy?
Showing the mount command would of course have been better, with the remark that it took severtal minutes (the only thing we can not see) from the code.


# lsblk -f
NAME              FSTYPE      LABEL UUID                                   FSAVAIL FSUSE% MOUNTPOINT
sda
├─sda1            ext4              e920a247-b5d0-4199-a405-b66d18258c0e    373.2M    16% /boot
└─sda2            crypto_LUKS       bc3591c6-6bfc-447d-8ece-adf87c08d6ba
  └─cr-auto-1     LVM2_member       SDwntq-ohW4-ZpjL-wclp-CeDG-1f8p-Tp5ltx
    ├─system-root ext4              3ecdd803-a53a-469a-99a0-a8f8ffb68103       26G    28% /
    ├─system-swap swap              e2fc9a10-00a8-481b-b2fc-ba6a7e8d4b09
    └─system-home ext4              4b3d9794-d54b-4efa-a557-f5eccd67f797    353.4G     9% /home
sdc                                                                           1.2M    13% /mnt/floppy
sr0

[/QUOTE]
Note that there is no FSTYPE in the lsblk output. Maybe we can find out with (with the device mounted at /mnt/floppy):

mount | grep sdc

to show what all the mount parameters used are.

As bonus information, you may inform us about that device. Does it mimic a floppy device on USB? or does it just mimic a mass storage device with a file system of some type like other mass-storage connected through USB?

4

It’s been so long ago,
I’ve forgotten how to mount a floppy,

The following might describe how you can try mounting in your fstab (on boot) which might address any permission problems… Notice you also need to mount your file system, not just the device

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/6527/6527-h/files/node79.html

TSU

5

First, the floppy disk must be readable; otherwise, it will not mount. Secondly, it must be in the floppy drive when you plug it in. Using KDE I simply plugged my USB floppy drive in with a 3.5" 1.4MB disk already in and it appeared in /run/media/john/.

So there is no problem with Leap 15.1 automatically mounting 3.5" 1.4MB floppy disks. However, yours is listed as 1.2M which suggests that it is formated for transitional reasons as a 5.25" 1.2MB disk. These came out in 1982 and were superseded by the 3.5" disk in 1986 but the transtional format was available for 3.5" floppy disks. So it is possible that this format is no longer/was never supported. My memory of the KDE Floppy disK formating program from 20 years ago is that it only offered 720KB and 1.4MB PC formats.

So, if Windows will read it, you may need to copy the data using Windows; I had to use a CP/M program to copy my CP/M files to 720KB PC disks when I made the move to Linux.

6

Things are quite different here. I bought a SABRENT USB floppy disk drive:


erlangen:~ # lsusb -v -s 001:008

Bus 001 Device 008: ID 0644:0000 TEAC Corp. Floppy
Device Descriptor:
  bLength                18
  bDescriptorType         1
  bcdUSB               1.10
  bDeviceClass            0 
  bDeviceSubClass         0 
  bDeviceProtocol         0 
  bMaxPacketSize0         8
  idVendor           0x0644 TEAC Corp.
  idProduct          0x0000 Floppy
  bcdDevice            2.00
  iManufacturer           1 TEACV2.0
  iProduct                2 TEACV2.0
  iSerial                 0 
  bNumConfigurations      1
  Configuration Descriptor:
    bLength                 9
    bDescriptorType         2
    wTotalLength       0x0027
    bNumInterfaces          1
    bConfigurationValue     1
    iConfiguration          0 
    bmAttributes         0x80
      (Bus Powered)
    MaxPower              100mA
    Interface Descriptor:
      bLength                 9
      bDescriptorType         4
      bInterfaceNumber        0
      bAlternateSetting       0
      bNumEndpoints           3
      bInterfaceClass         8 Mass Storage
      bInterfaceSubClass      4 Floppy (UFI)
      bInterfaceProtocol      0 Control/Bulk/Interrupt
      iInterface              0 
      Endpoint Descriptor:
        bLength                 7
        bDescriptorType         5
        bEndpointAddress     0x82  EP 2 IN
        bmAttributes            2
          Transfer Type            Bulk
          Synch Type               None
          Usage Type               Data
        wMaxPacketSize     0x0040  1x 64 bytes
        bInterval               0
      Endpoint Descriptor:
        bLength                 7
        bDescriptorType         5
        bEndpointAddress     0x02  EP 2 OUT
        bmAttributes            2
          Transfer Type            Bulk
          Synch Type               None
          Usage Type               Data
        wMaxPacketSize     0x0040  1x 64 bytes
        bInterval               0
      Endpoint Descriptor:
        bLength                 7
        bDescriptorType         5
        bEndpointAddress     0x81  EP 1 IN
        bmAttributes            3
          Transfer Type            Interrupt
          Synch Type               None
          Usage Type               Data
        wMaxPacketSize     0x0002  1x 2 bytes
        bInterval             127
can't get debug descriptor: Resource temporarily unavailable
Device Status:     0x0000
  (Bus Powered)
erlangen:~ #

It works like any other disk drive, however:

erlangen:~ # time dd if=/dev/sdc of=floppy.iso           
dd: error reading '/dev/sdc': Input/output error
2744+0 records in
2744+0 records out
1404928 bytes (1.4 MB, 1.3 MiB) copied, 77.1844 s, 18.2 kB/s

real    1m17.233s
user    0m0.000s
sys     0m0.035s
erlangen:~ #

I/O speed is abysmal. So you are better off with images.

erlangen:~ # losetup -f floppy.iso               
erlangen:~ # mount -o loop /dev/loop1 /mnt/
erlangen:~ # ll /mnt/
total 1310
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root    288 Feb 17  1995 ET4.MOD
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root   1936 Feb 16  1995 EXA1.FOR
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root   2091 Feb 16  1995 EXA2.FOR
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root   1462 Feb 16  1995 EXA3.FOR
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root  13948 Feb 20  1995 EXAMPL.FOR
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root     47 Feb 20  1995 FORT.5
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root   3490 Feb 13  1995 FORT.51
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root  34816 Feb 12  1995 FORT.80
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 238937 Feb 20  1995 FORT.90
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root  71828 Feb 15  1995 FUNK.FOR
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 269783 Feb 17  1995 KWUPLOT.FOR
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 691051 Feb 18  1995 KWUPOST.FOR
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root    896 Feb 13  1995 KWUPOST.SH
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root    318 Feb 20  1995 PL.SH
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root   3490 Feb 13  1995 PROLOG.PS
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root   2756 Feb 10  1995 STINIT.C
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root    493 Feb 16  1995 V7VESA.MOD
erlangen:~ #

You may squash these:

erlangen:~ # mksquashfs  /mnt/ floppy.sqsh 
Parallel mksquashfs: Using 8 processors
Creating 4.0 filesystem on floppy.sqsh, block size 131072.
==============================================================================================================================================================================================================================|] 25/25 100%

Exportable Squashfs 4.0 filesystem, gzip compressed, data block size 131072
        compressed data, compressed metadata, compressed fragments,
        compressed xattrs, compressed ids
        duplicates are removed
Filesystem size 167.88 Kbytes (0.16 Mbytes)
        12.84% of uncompressed filesystem size (1307.46 Kbytes)
Inode table size 306 bytes (0.30 Kbytes)
        49.20% of uncompressed inode table size (622 bytes)
Directory table size 201 bytes (0.20 Kbytes)
        69.31% of uncompressed directory table size (290 bytes)
Number of duplicate files found 1
Number of inodes 18
Number of files 17
Number of fragments 2
Number of symbolic links  0
Number of device nodes 0
Number of fifo nodes 0
Number of socket nodes 0
Number of directories 1
Number of ids (unique uids + gids) 1
Number of uids 1
        root (0)
Number of gids 1
        root (0)
erlangen:~ #

Mount them as follows:

erlangen:~ # mount -t squashfs -o loop floppy.sqsh /mnt 
erlangen:~ # ll /mnt/
total 1310
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root    288 Feb 17  1995 ET4.MOD
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root   1936 Feb 16  1995 EXA1.FOR
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root   2091 Feb 16  1995 EXA2.FOR
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root   1462 Feb 16  1995 EXA3.FOR
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root  13948 Feb 20  1995 EXAMPL.FOR
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root     47 Feb 20  1995 FORT.5
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root   3490 Feb 13  1995 FORT.51
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root  34816 Feb 12  1995 FORT.80
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 238937 Feb 20  1995 FORT.90
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root  71828 Feb 15  1995 FUNK.FOR
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 269783 Feb 17  1995 KWUPLOT.FOR
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 691051 Feb 18  1995 KWUPOST.FOR
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root    896 Feb 13  1995 KWUPOST.SH
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root    318 Feb 20  1995 PL.SH
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root   3490 Feb 13  1995 PROLOG.PS
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root   2756 Feb 10  1995 STINIT.C
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root    493 Feb 16  1995 V7VESA.MOD
erlangen:~ #
7

lsblk takes information from udev/sysfs. When floppy is connected via USB, it is queried by udev; as there is no medium, nothing is shown. When medium is inserted, there is no notification to kernel/udev - with floppy the only way to check for present medium is to attempt to access it. So device attributes are not updated. blkid should probe device directly. It would be interesting to compare output.

I guess something similar happens with GUI tools. When empty floppy drive is first connected, mount fails because it is empty. Later when floppy is inserted in drive, nothing informs GUI about it.

8

There is nothing special with floppies:

erlangen:~ # journalctl -b 0 _KERNEL_SUBSYSTEM=usb --since 12:00
-- Logs begin at Sun 2020-03-29 16:41:11 CEST, end at Wed 2020-04-01 12:09:28 CEST. --
Apr 01 12:05:59 erlangen kernel: usb 1-9: new full-speed USB device number 14 using xhci_hcd
Apr 01 12:06:00 erlangen kernel: usb 1-9: New USB device found, idVendor=0644, idProduct=0000, bcdDevice= 2.00
Apr 01 12:06:00 erlangen kernel: usb 1-9: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=0
Apr 01 12:06:00 erlangen kernel: usb 1-9: Product: TEACV2.0
Apr 01 12:06:00 erlangen kernel: usb 1-9: Manufacturer: TEACV2.0
Apr 01 12:06:00 erlangen kernel: usb-storage 1-9:1.0: USB Mass Storage device detected
erlangen:~ # 


erlangen:~ # lsb /dev/sdc
PATH     LABEL PARTLABEL PARTUUID UUID FSTYPE MOUNTPOINT
/dev/sdc                               vfat   /run/media/karl/disk
erlangen:~ #

Device Notifier works as with every other removable device.

erlangen:~ # journalctl _KERNEL_SUBSYSTEM=scsi --since 12:00
-- Logs begin at Sun 2020-03-29 16:41:11 CEST, end at Wed 2020-04-01 12:09:28 CEST. --
Apr 01 12:06:00 erlangen kernel: scsi host6: usb-storage 1-9:1.0
Apr 01 12:06:01 erlangen kernel: scsi 6:0:0:0: Direct-Access     TEAC     USB UF000x       2.00 PQ: 0 ANSI: 0 CCS
Apr 01 12:06:01 erlangen kernel: sd 6:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg2 type 0
Apr 01 12:06:01 erlangen kernel: sd 6:0:0:0: Power-on or device reset occurred
Apr 01 12:06:04 erlangen kernel: sd 6:0:0:0: [sdc] 2880 512-byte logical blocks: (1.47 MB/1.41 MiB)
Apr 01 12:06:04 erlangen kernel: sd 6:0:0:0: [sdc] Write Protect is on
Apr 01 12:06:04 erlangen kernel: sd 6:0:0:0: [sdc] Mode Sense: 00 46 94 80
Apr 01 12:06:04 erlangen kernel: sd 6:0:0:0: [sdc] No Caching mode page found
Apr 01 12:06:04 erlangen kernel: sd 6:0:0:0: [sdc] Assuming drive cache: write through
Apr 01 12:06:05 erlangen kernel: sd 6:0:0:0: [sdc] Attached SCSI removable disk
erlangen:~ #
9

Thank you very much for the various comments and suggestions.
I’ll try to make my post more readable, while trying to answer some of the questions.
First of all, this is openSuSE 15.1 with KDE Plasma version 5.12.8, KDE Framework version 5.55.0.
Second, I am certainly aware not to use root. However, this was for testing only, because as a user the device notifier indicated a permission problem, as mentioned in the original post.
Third, I had created /mnt/floppy to have a mountpoint.

So, for this answer, I stay logged in as a user and connect the USB device with a floppy inserted. The device notifier detects a “Floppy Disk”, but says “You are not authorized to mount this device”.

However, with the floppy inserted when connecting, after the device notifier message, I see after switching to the console


/home/bs> lsblk
NAME              MAJ:MIN RM   SIZE RO TYPE  MOUNTPOINT
sda                 8:0    0   477G  0 disk  
├─sda1              8:1    0   500M  0 part  /boot
└─sda2              8:2    0 476.5G  0 part  
  └─cr-auto-1     254:0    0 476.5G  0 crypt 
    ├─system-root 254:1    0    40G  0 lvm   /
    ├─system-swap 254:2    0    16G  0 lvm   
    └─system-home 254:3    0 420.5G  0 lvm   /home
sdb                 8:16   1   1.4M  0 disk  /run/media/bs/disk
sr0                11:0    1  1024M  0 rom

The size of sdb is 1.4M - should be OK, right?
To see the filesystem type, I used:


/home/bs> lsblk -f /dev/sdb
NAME FSTYPE LABEL UUID FSAVAIL FSUSE% MOUNTPOINT
sdb                                             1.2M        13%  /run/media/bs/disk

Note that the 1.2M is the available space, not the full capacity. Also, note that no FSTYPE is reported.
However, despite the message, the floppy seems to be mounted.
I used the mount command as decribed in one of your answers:


/home/bs> mount|grep sdb
/dev/sdb on /run/media/bs/disk type vfat  (rw,nosuid,nodev,relatime,fmask=0022,dmask=0022,codepage=437,iocharset=iso8859-1,shortname=mixed,errors=remount-ro,uhelper=udisks2)

Seems to be vfat filesystem, right? Should be readable and writable, right? At least that is reported. Checking the contents of the floppy, I get a result as reported yesterday:


/home/bs> ls -a /run/media/bs/disk
.  ..

I know from the test with the Windows system having an internal floppy drive that the medium does contain several files.
By the way, here is the lsusb output:

/home/bs> lsusb
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0003 Linux Foundation 3.0 root hub
Bus 001 Device 002: ID 8087:0a2b Intel Corp. 
Bus 001 Device 005: ID 0644:0000 TEAC Corp. Floppy
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub

Does some of this information help to track down the problem? What additional information would you need?

Best regards
Bernd

10

In any case, you provided a lot of useful information. Thanks for that.

I also can see why your conclusions: detected by the kernel and given device file /dev/sdb. Contains a vfat file system. Mounted by the desktp at /run /media/bs/disk, where bs is the user (and made the owner because vfat has no owner by itself) and disk is probably a label (you could check what other identifiers are valid with

ls -l /dev/disk/* | grep sdb

).

Inpecting the contents with ls shows only the directory itself and it’s parent, no real contents.

lsblk says 13% used or 0.2 from 1.4 (leaving 1.2 available). Hm.
Could you try

df -h /dev/sdb

to see if that confirms?

No “Eureka” from me until now.

11

Without any tinkering I get:

erlangen:~ # mount|grep disk
/dev/sdc on /run/media/karl/disk type vfat (ro,nosuid,nodev,relatime,**uid=1000,gid=100**,fmask=0022,dmask=0022,codepage=437,iocharset=iso8859-1,shortname=mixed,showexec,utf8,flush,errors=remount-ro,uhelper=udisks2)
erlangen:~ #

This is different. Try to add the missing options. If that does not help provide journal:

Apr 01 21:51:55 erlangen kernel: usb 1-10: new full-speed USB device number 17 using xhci_hcd
Apr 01 21:51:56 erlangen kernel: usb 1-10: New USB device found, idVendor=0644, idProduct=0000, bcdDevice= 2.00
Apr 01 21:51:56 erlangen kernel: usb 1-10: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=0
Apr 01 21:51:56 erlangen kernel: usb 1-10: Product: TEACV2.0
Apr 01 21:51:56 erlangen kernel: usb 1-10: Manufacturer: TEACV2.0
Apr 01 21:51:56 erlangen kernel: usb-storage 1-10:1.0: USB Mass Storage device detected
Apr 01 21:51:56 erlangen kernel: scsi host6: usb-storage 1-10:1.0
Apr 01 21:51:56 erlangen mtp-probe[17466]: checking bus 1, device 17: "/sys/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:14.0/usb1/1-10"
Apr 01 21:51:56 erlangen mtp-probe[17466]: bus: 1, device: 17 was not an MTP device
Apr 01 21:51:56 erlangen mtp-probe[17470]: checking bus 1, device 17: "/sys/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:14.0/usb1/1-10"
Apr 01 21:51:56 erlangen mtp-probe[17470]: bus: 1, device: 17 was not an MTP device
Apr 01 21:51:57 erlangen kernel: scsi 6:0:0:0: Direct-Access     TEAC     USB UF000x       2.00 PQ: 0 ANSI: 0 CCS
Apr 01 21:51:57 erlangen kernel: sd 6:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg2 type 0
Apr 01 21:51:57 erlangen kernel: sd 6:0:0:0: Power-on or device reset occurred
Apr 01 21:51:59 erlangen kernel: sd 6:0:0:0: [sdc] 2880 512-byte logical blocks: (1.47 MB/1.41 MiB)
Apr 01 21:52:00 erlangen kernel: sd 6:0:0:0: [sdc] Write Protect is on
Apr 01 21:52:00 erlangen kernel: sd 6:0:0:0: [sdc] Mode Sense: 00 46 94 80
Apr 01 21:52:00 erlangen kernel: sd 6:0:0:0: [sdc] No Caching mode page found
Apr 01 21:52:00 erlangen kernel: sd 6:0:0:0: [sdc] Assuming drive cache: write through
Apr 01 21:52:00 erlangen kernel: ldm_parse_privhead(): Cannot find PRIVHEAD structure. LDM database is corrupt. Aborting.
Apr 01 21:52:00 erlangen kernel: ldm_validate_privheads(): Cannot find PRIVHEAD 1.
Apr 01 21:52:00 erlangen kernel:  sdc:
Apr 01 21:52:01 erlangen kernel: sd 6:0:0:0: [sdc] Attached SCSI removable disk
Apr 01 21:52:06 erlangen kwin_x11[2230]: qt.qpa.xcb: QXcbConnection: XCB error: 3 (BadWindow), sequence: 49862, resource id: 37750862, major code: 2 (ChangeWindowAttributes), minor code: 0
Apr 01 21:52:07 erlangen udisksd[1984]: Mounted /dev/sdc at /run/media/karl/disk on behalf of uid 1000
12

Dear hcvv,
here is the result of the two suggested commands:

/home/bs> ls -l /dev/disk/* | grep sdb
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  9  1. Apr 21:57 usb-TEACV0.0_TEACV0.0 -> ../../sdb
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  9  1. Apr 21:57 pci-0000:00:14.0-usb-0:3:1.0-scsi-0:0:0:0 -> ../../sdb


/home/bs> df -h /dev/sdb
Filesystem      Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sdb        1.4M  187K  1.3M  14% /run/media/bs/disk

Seems to roughly be the same.
Any more ideas?

@karlmistelberger: how would I add the options? entry in /etc/fstab?

13

Enumerate all options, separated by commas: mount › Wiki › ubuntuusers.de

Note: I never need to use /etc/fstab for mounting removable devices. The system does this automatically.

14

It is indeed strange, those uid= and gid= options should be there, added atomagicaly by a desktop mount.

You could at least check what the owners of the few files we have now are:

ls -la /run/media/bs/disk

(the ls -a alone is bit minimal).

disk seems to be a sort of default, no label shown in your output (only id and path).

Mountimg it yourself means that it should not be mounted by the desktop, or umount when already mounted.

But, as we are not interested at the moment about who should be the owner, but if there can be found files on it, I assume that we can go back to the ls -ls statement. When the owner and group are not bs and users (in the above output), please repeat as root the

ls -la /run/media/bs/disk
15

Here is the output of the less than minimal ls commands:

/home/bs> ls -la /run/media/bs/disk
total 7
drwxr-xr-x  2 root root 7168  1. Jan 1970  .
drwxr-x---+ 3 root root   60  2. Apr 09:32 ..
/home/bs> sudo ls -la /run/media/bs/disk
[sudo] password for root: 
total 7
drwxr-xr-x  2 root root 7168  1. Jan 1970  .
drwxr-x---+ 3 root root   60  2. Apr 09:32 ..

So, the files do not belong the user.

I also tried karlmistelbergers dd command:


/home/bs> sudo dd if=/dev/sdb of=floppy.iso
dd: error reading '/dev/sdb': Input/output error
16+0 records in
16+0 records out
8192 bytes (8.2 kB, 8.0 KiB) copied, 6.33699 s, 1.3 kB/s

This copies much less than the expected 187K that were reported as “used” by df -h earlier.

Also, here are the journal entries after the USB device is being detected ( am not sure if this is enough, of course, I can provide more if needed):


-- Logs begin at Thu 2020-04-02 09:29:27 CEST, end at Thu 2020-04-02 09:57:51 CEST. --
Apr 02 09:32:33 E756.hedera kernel: usb 1-3: new full-speed USB device number 3 using xhci_hcd
Apr 02 09:32:33 E756.hedera kernel: usb 1-3: New USB device found, idVendor=0644, idProduct=0000
Apr 02 09:32:33 E756.hedera kernel: usb 1-3: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=0
Apr 02 09:32:33 E756.hedera kernel: usb 1-3: Product: TEACV0.0
Apr 02 09:32:33 E756.hedera kernel: usb 1-3: Manufacturer: TEACV0.0
Apr 02 09:32:33 E756.hedera mtp-probe[2964]: checking bus 1, device 3: "/sys/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:14.0/usb1/1-3"
Apr 02 09:32:33 E756.hedera mtp-probe[2964]: bus: 1, device: 3 was not an MTP device
Apr 02 09:32:34 E756.hedera kernel: usb-storage 1-3:1.0: USB Mass Storage device detected
Apr 02 09:32:34 E756.hedera kernel: scsi host3: usb-storage 1-3:1.0
Apr 02 09:32:34 E756.hedera kernel: usbcore: registered new interface driver usb-storage
Apr 02 09:32:34 E756.hedera kernel: usbcore: registered new interface driver uas
Apr 02 09:32:35 E756.hedera kernel: scsi 3:0:0:0: Direct-Access     TEAC     USB UF000x       0.00 PQ: 0 ANSI: 0 CCS
Apr 02 09:32:35 E756.hedera kernel: sd 3:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg2 type 0
Apr 02 09:32:36 E756.hedera kernel: sd 3:0:0:0: [sdb] 2880 512-byte logical blocks: (1.47 MB/1.41 MiB)
Apr 02 09:32:36 E756.hedera kernel: sd 3:0:0:0: [sdb] Write Protect is off
Apr 02 09:32:36 E756.hedera kernel: sd 3:0:0:0: [sdb] Mode Sense: 00 46 02 00
Apr 02 09:32:36 E756.hedera kernel: sd 3:0:0:0: [sdb] No Caching mode page found
Apr 02 09:32:36 E756.hedera kernel: sd 3:0:0:0: [sdb] Assuming drive cache: write through
Apr 02 09:32:37 E756.hedera kernel:  sdb:
Apr 02 09:32:37 E756.hedera kernel: sd 3:0:0:0: [sdb] Attached SCSI removable disk
Apr 02 09:32:42 E756.hedera kernel: sd 3:0:0:0: [sdb] tag#0 FAILED Result: hostbyte=DID_OK driverbyte=DRIVER_SENSE
Apr 02 09:32:42 E756.hedera kernel: sd 3:0:0:0: [sdb] tag#0 Sense Key : Medium Error [current]
Apr 02 09:32:42 E756.hedera kernel: sd 3:0:0:0: [sdb] tag#0 Add. Sense: Cannot read medium - unknown format
Apr 02 09:32:42 E756.hedera kernel: sd 3:0:0:0: [sdb] tag#0 CDB: Read(10) 28 00 00 00 00 18 00 00 08 00 00 00
Apr 02 09:32:42 E756.hedera kernel: print_req_error: I/O error, dev sdb, sector 24
Apr 02 09:32:47 E756.hedera kernel: sd 3:0:0:0: [sdb] tag#0 FAILED Result: hostbyte=DID_OK driverbyte=DRIVER_SENSE
Apr 02 09:32:47 E756.hedera kernel: sd 3:0:0:0: [sdb] tag#0 Sense Key : Medium Error [current]
Apr 02 09:32:47 E756.hedera kernel: sd 3:0:0:0: [sdb] tag#0 Add. Sense: Cannot read medium - unknown format
Apr 02 09:32:47 E756.hedera kernel: sd 3:0:0:0: [sdb] tag#0 CDB: Read(10) 28 00 00 00 00 18 00 00 08 00 00 00
Apr 02 09:32:47 E756.hedera kernel: print_req_error: I/O error, dev sdb, sector 24
Apr 02 09:32:47 E756.hedera kernel: Buffer I/O error on dev sdb, logical block 3, async page read
Apr 02 09:32:47 E756.hedera kdeinit5[1707]: QObject::connect: invalid null parameter
Apr 02 09:32:47 E756.hedera kdeinit5[1707]: QObject::connect: invalid null parameter
Apr 02 09:32:47 E756.hedera plasmashell[1747]: org.kde.plasmaquick: Applet "Device Notifier" loaded after 0 msec
Apr 02 09:32:47 E756.hedera plasmashell[1747]: org.kde.plasmaquick: Increasing score for "Device Notifier" to 60
Apr 02 09:32:47 E756.hedera plasmashell[1747]: trying to show an empty dialog
Apr 02 09:32:53 E756.hedera kernel: sd 3:0:0:0: [sdb] tag#0 FAILED Result: hostbyte=DID_OK driverbyte=DRIVER_SENSE
Apr 02 09:32:53 E756.hedera kernel: sd 3:0:0:0: [sdb] tag#0 Sense Key : Medium Error [current]
Apr 02 09:32:53 E756.hedera kernel: sd 3:0:0:0: [sdb] tag#0 Add. Sense: Cannot read medium - unknown format
Apr 02 09:32:53 E756.hedera kernel: sd 3:0:0:0: [sdb] tag#0 CDB: Read(10) 28 00 00 00 00 20 00 00 08 00 00 00
Apr 02 09:32:53 E756.hedera kernel: print_req_error: I/O error, dev sdb, sector 32
Apr 02 09:32:57 E756.hedera kernel: sd 3:0:0:0: [sdb] tag#0 FAILED Result: hostbyte=DID_OK driverbyte=DRIVER_SENSE
Apr 02 09:32:57 E756.hedera kernel: sd 3:0:0:0: [sdb] tag#0 Sense Key : Medium Error [current]
Apr 02 09:32:57 E756.hedera kernel: sd 3:0:0:0: [sdb] tag#0 Add. Sense: Cannot read medium - unknown format
Apr 02 09:32:57 E756.hedera kernel: sd 3:0:0:0: [sdb] tag#0 CDB: Read(10) 28 00 00 00 00 20 00 00 08 00 00 00
Apr 02 09:32:57 E756.hedera kernel: print_req_error: I/O error, dev sdb, sector 32
Apr 02 09:32:57 E756.hedera kernel: Buffer I/O error on dev sdb, logical block 4, async page read
16

When in trouble you need to consider every possible cause. Boot your machine from live USB Tumbleweed and retry mounting the floppy.

17

Yes, they do not belong to bs, but that is at the moment of no importance (maybe we have to address that later when the files are there). Thing is that the file sytem is apparently a correct vfat file system, but there are no files in it.

That is not very strange at all, but you tell us there is definitely something there. Until now we simply believed you ;), but can you give us any more information (at best some listing made on another system) what is expected to be there?

18

And if I may comment already before Karl, that dd command should show a the complete 1.4 MB copied, because dd does not care about the contents, it only copies bytes. Thus an I/O error after only 8.2 KB points to some failure of the device IMHO.

19

Bernd reported the drive to work fine with Windows. But Windows could ignore the errors occurring. To check with Linux use: dd conv=noerror.

20

Well, here is the output of a dir command on Windows XP (unfortunately in German):

 
Volume in Laufwerk A: hat keine Bezeichnung.
 Volumeseriennummer: 3148-11E3

 Verzeichnis von A:\
 
06/30/1999  11:15 AM            28,160 PYR1.doc
06/30/1999  11:25 AM            98,366 pyr1.bmp
06/30/1999  11:20 AM             1,644 Image21.gif
06/30/1999  11:20 AM             2,052 Image22.gif
06/30/1999  11:20 AM             1,715 Image23.gif
06/30/1999  11:20 AM             1,029 PYR1.htm
06/30/1999  11:39 AM            55,127 pyr1.pcx
07/01/1999  04:01 PM               127 WS_FTP.LOG
               8 Datei(en)        188,220 Bytes
               0 Verzeichnis(se),      1,266,688 Bytes frei

As you see, the number of bytes corresponds to the “used” space reported by the df command when the USB device with the disk is connected to the Linux machine.

Second piece of information for now is the result of the modified dd command as to Karl (now the device is sdc, because I used another USB device before):

/home/bs>  sudo dd conv=noerror if=/dev/sdc of=floppy.iso
[sudo] password for root: 
dd: error reading '/dev/sdc': Input/output error
16+0 records in
16+0 records out
8192 bytes (8.2 kB, 8.0 KiB) copied, 24.3848 s, 0.3 kB/s
dd: error reading '/dev/sdc': Input/output error
16+0 records in
16+0 records out
8192 bytes (8.2 kB, 8.0 KiB) copied, 34.1764 s, 0.2 kB/s
dd: error reading '/dev/sdc': Input/output error
16+0 records in
16+0 records out
8192 bytes (8.2 kB, 8.0 KiB) copied, 43.8404 s, 0.2 kB/s
dd: error reading '/dev/sdc': Input/output error
16+0 records in
16+0 records out
8192 bytes (8.2 kB, 8.0 KiB) copied, 53.4405 s, 0.2 kB/s
dd: error reading '/dev/sdc': Input/output error
16+0 records in
16+0 records out
8192 bytes (8.2 kB, 8.0 KiB) copied, 63.0405 s, 0.1 kB/s
dd: error reading '/dev/sdc': Input/output error
16+0 records in
16+0 records out
8192 bytes (8.2 kB, 8.0 KiB) copied, 72.6406 s, 0.1 kB/s
dd: error reading '/dev/sdc': Input/output error
16+0 records in
16+0 records out
8192 bytes (8.2 kB, 8.0 KiB) copied, 82.3047 s, 0.1 kB/s
dd: error reading '/dev/sdc': Input/output error
16+0 records in
16+0 records out
8192 bytes (8.2 kB, 8.0 KiB) copied, 91.9047 s, 0.1 kB/s
dd: error reading '/dev/sdc': Input/output error
16+0 records in
16+0 records out
8192 bytes (8.2 kB, 8.0 KiB) copied, 106.305 s, 0.1 kB/s
dd: error reading '/dev/sdc': Input/output error
16+0 records in
16+0 records out
8192 bytes (8.2 kB, 8.0 KiB) copied, 115.969 s, 0.1 kB/s
dd: error reading '/dev/sdc': Input/output error
16+0 records in
16+0 records out
8192 bytes (8.2 kB, 8.0 KiB) copied, 125.569 s, 0.1 kB/s
dd: error reading '/dev/sdc': Input/output error
16+0 records in
16+0 records out
8192 bytes (8.2 kB, 8.0 KiB) copied, 135.169 s, 0.1 kB/s
dd: error reading '/dev/sdc': Input/output error
16+0 records in
16+0 records out
8192 bytes (8.2 kB, 8.0 KiB) copied, 144.833 s, 0.1 kB/s
dd: error reading '/dev/sdc': Input/output error
16+0 records in
16+0 records out
8192 bytes (8.2 kB, 8.0 KiB) copied, 154.433 s, 0.1 kB/s
dd: error reading '/dev/sdc': Input/output error
16+0 records in
16+0 records out
8192 bytes (8.2 kB, 8.0 KiB) copied, 168.833 s, 0.0 kB/s
dd: error reading '/dev/sdc': Input/output error
16+0 records in
16+0 records out
8192 bytes (8.2 kB, 8.0 KiB) copied, 183.298 s, 0.0 kB/s

and this goes on (forever?), so I stopped the execution of the command.

This is information about the created file:

/home/bs> ll floppy.iso 
-rw------- 1 root root 8192  2. Apr 19:12 floppy.iso

I also noticed when trying to look into the craeted file (which of course contains a lot of unreadable stuff) some lines that may tell us something:


/home/bs> sudo more floppy.iso
�<�):ie%IHC��:f�|f;�W�u���V��s�3ɊF��fFVFыv`�F�V�� �� ;�r�ݾ}���t&lt;�t      ��
�V$��dar
@uB^
    Iuw�'
Ungueltiges System �
E/A-Fehler    �
Datentraeger wechseln und Taste druecken

��
  ��
    ��
      ��
        �

(invalid system, i/o-error, change disk and press key). What is this?

The other suggestion of Karl, to use a live Tumbleweed USB, will take some more time, because I will have to read and understand what I am doing then. I will try that definitely too, but maybe the above will lead us further.