Serious floppy problems

[Henkipatto]

Well, I thought I'd make a boot disk for my fresh Feisty Fawn install, but my floppy drive won't co-operate. I can't even format a diskette; "fdformat /dev/fd0" returns:

Double-sided, 80 tracks, 18 sec/track. Total capacity 1440 kB.
Formatting ... done
Verifying ... Read: : Input/output error
Problem reading cylinder 0, expected 18432, read -1

and neither does the graphical format program work. I tried "grub-floppy /dev/fd0" which returns:

Creating grub boot floppy now, please be patient ...

/bin/dd: writing `/dev/fd0': Input/output error
1+0 records in
0+0 records out
0 bytes (0 B) copied, 1.94144 seconds, 0.0 kB/s
/bin/dd: writing `/dev/fd0': Input/output error
1+0 records in
0+0 records out
0 bytes (0 B) copied, 1.59304 seconds, 0.0 kB/s

That's All Folks!

Any ideas?

[penguin.ch]

Re: Serious floppy problems

Ad hoc: apt-get install fdutils (further reading)

[Henkipatto]

Re: Serious floppy problems

Can't come up with anything of help with those utilities. I tried "superformat", which didn't do much and "floppymeter" gave this:

Warning: all data on the floppy disk will be lost. Continue (y/N)? y

format: Input/output error

Any directionals?

[SheeEttin]

Re: Serious floppy problems

Check the cables?

[penguin.ch]

Re: Serious floppy problems

Input/output error

Hmmm ... what does more /etc/fstab | grep 'fd' result in?

Check the cables?

Good point ... in my wording: may hwinfo be with you

[Rog131]

Re: Serious floppy problems

I notised that feisty can't mount floppy (working in the dapper).

When trying to mount:
CPU load 100 %
and in the /var/log/syslog has:

floppy0: probe failed...
floppy0: probe failed...
end_request: I/O error, dev fd0, sector 0
floppy0: unexpected interrupt
floppy0: sensei repl[0]=80

and

floppy0: probe failed...
floppy0: unexpected interrupt
floppy0: sensei repl[0]=80
floppy0: -- FDC reply errorfloppy0: probe failed...
floppy0: probe failed...
floppy0: probe failed...
floppy0: probe failed...
end_request: I/O error, dev fd0, sector 0
Buffer I/O error on device fd0, logical block 0
floppy0: probe failed...

Googling with error messages - trying various fixes (and removing them after try ):

Floppy drive not working properly
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=159599

Floppy Drive Not Working
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=165267

floppy problem
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=183656

floppy disk mount issues
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=2726700

cant mount floppy on dapper
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=1047004

Topic: floppy
http://kubuntuforums.net/forums/inde...opic=3081029.0

Fix for mtrr "overlapping" error.
http://www.rage3d.com/board/showthre...3736241&page=4

After using video RAM override (using 128000 kB instead of 131072 kB) floppies startted to work. - Is This The FIX - removing video RAM override - and noticed that floppy drive is working without video RAM override. LOL

Don't know how BUT floppies are now working

[Detonate]

Re: Serious floppy problems

Silly question, but what position is the write protect tab in on that floppy?

[Snowhog]

Re: Serious floppy problems

From my post concerning floppy woes.

Okay, so no one wanted to tackle this one. That left me to see if I could find the answer myself, and I did. There is a bug report on this problem:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+s...ase/+bug/30207

What I was looking for was in this permlink in that bug report:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+s...07/comments/44

The follow-on permlink describes how to make this a permanent fix, but it opens up all your mounted HDs and their partitions, which I didn't like:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+s...07/comments/45

So I've opted to use the first permlink 'fix' which is to open System Menu | Media Storage, and then type into the location bar, media:/sdd/ (the trailing / is necessary), this being my /dev/* definition for this device in my /etc/fstab file. NOTE: If you have a diskette in the floppy when you boot, this doesn't work (at least it didn't work for me), and you have to remove the diskette and restart (I restart Kubuntu, but restarting X may be sufficient).

This works! It isn't the way accessing the floppy should work, but it is a useable work-around solution.

[dibl]

Re: Serious floppy problems

Interesting.

It seems so recent that the 1.44MB diskette was a breakthrough in temporary storage capability. Now, I can get one song on a diskette ..... With live CD ISO images all over the place, I'm not sure what the point of a floppy drive is, today.

BTW, apparently this is a KDE-specific problem. Ubuntu finds my diskette and its lonely little song with no problem.

[SheeEttin]

Re: Serious floppy problems

I used floppies for quick file transfers until I got a pack of three 1 GB flash drives for my birthday or whatever.

Of course, now I mostly just do it over the LAN.

[DMurray]

Re: Serious floppy problems

You will probably put a system on a pendrive easier than you will make a boot diskette. Throw it away.
Last drive on my system dates back from 1999. Don't really miss them. =P