NEC Floppy won't work

[lkraemer]

Re: Floppy Drive does not Work In Kubuntu.

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I have the the following problem in Ubuntu 7.04 (INSTALLED) and using the KDE
Desktop (Kubuntu LIVECD doesn't work either).

Here is my data:

Can Not Mount Floppy Drive in Ubuntu 7.04 or from LIVE CD.

Floppy Drive and 3.5" Disks are good, and work in other
computers. Floppy will boot to Win98SE Install with a Win98SE
Install Floppy inserted. Win2K will read the floppy with text
files that Ubuntu won't Mount/Access.

Partial output of DMESG follows:

[ 17.149150] VP_IDE: IDE controller at PCI slot 0000:00:0f.1
[ 17.149475] ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [ALKA] enabled at IRQ 20
[ 17.149484] ACPI: PCI Interrupt 0000:00:0f.1[A] -> Link [ALKA] -> GSI 20 (level, low) -> IRQ 16
[ 17.149495] VP_IDE: chipset revision 6
[ 17.149498] VP_IDE: not 100% native mode: will probe irqs later
[ 17.149509] VP_IDE: VIA vt8237 (rev 00) IDE UDMA133 controller on pci0000:00:0f.1
[ 17.149517] ide0: BM-DMA at 0xe600-0xe607, BIOS settings: hdaio, hdbio
[ 17.149529] ide1: BM-DMA at 0xe608-0xe60f, BIOS settings: hdcio, hddio
[ 17.149536] Probing IDE interface ide0...
[ 17.171663] usbcore: registered new interface driver usbfs
[ 17.171684] usbcore: registered new interface driver hub
[ 17.171704] usbcore: registered new device driver usb
[ 17.172558] USB Universal Host Controller Interface driver v3.0
[ 17.248582] via-rhine.c:v1.10-LK1.4.2 Sept-11-2006 Written by Donald Becker
[ 17.390471] Floppy drive(s): fd0 is 1.44M
[ 17.430389] FDC 0 is a post-1991 82077
[ 17.617723] hda: Hitachi HDT725025VLAT80, ATA DISK drive
[ 18.288973] ide0 at 0x1f0-0x1f7,0x3f6 on irq 14
[ 18.300210] Probing IDE interface ide1...
[ 19.442944] hdd: LITE-ON DVDRW LH-20A1P, ATAPI CD/DVD-ROM drive
[ 19.499460] ide1 at 0x170-0x177,0x376 on irq 15
[ 19.512895] ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [ALKB] enabled at IRQ 21
[ 19.512904] ACPI: PCI Interrupt 0000:00:10.0[A] -> Link [ALKB] -> GSI 21 (level, low) -> IRQ 17


Contents of /ETC/FSTAB follows:

# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# <file system> <mount point> <type> <options> <dump> <pass>
proc /proc proc defaults 0 0
# /dev/hda1
UUID=b819fb61-9025-4ce6-b451-59cc2c86e55d / ext3 defaults,errors=remount-ro $
# /dev/hda5
UUID=36648f2f-8907-4fcc-b809-73254e2bf032 none swap sw 0 0
/dev/hdd /media/cdrom0 udf,iso9660 user,noauto 0 0
/dev/fd0 /media/floppy0 auto rw,user,noauto 0 0


Folder located at:
/media/floppy0
which should be the mount point.


Error when trying to Mount Floppy is:

CANNOT MOUNT VOLUME
Unable to mount Volume

Details
Mount: I could not determine the filesystem type, and none was specified.

root@lkraemer-desktop:/# ls -la /mnt
total 8
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 2007-10-10 20:55 .
drwxr-xr-x 21 root root 4096 2007-10-04 06:55 ..

root@lkraemer-desktop:/# ls -l /dev/fd0
brw-rw---- 1 root floppy 2, 0 2007-10-12 08:42 /dev/fd0

root@lkraemer-desktop:/# ls -la /media/floppy0
total 8
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 2007-10-10 20:55 .
drwxr-xr-x 4 root root 4096 2007-10-12 08:09 ..

root@lkraemer-desktop:/# groups lkraemer
lkraemer : lkraemer adm dialout fax cdrom floppy tape audio dip video
plugdev scanner netdev lpadmin powerdev admin

root@lkraemer-desktop:/# fdformat /dev/fd0
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

root@lkraemer-desktop:/# fdformat /dev/fd0
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
root@lkraemer-desktop:/#

When I double click on COMPUTER
a Floppy Drive Icon is displayed along with the CDRW and FILESYSTEM ICONS.

When I right click on the Floppy Drive Icon, and check PROPERTIES
the Owner is UNKNOWN and all ACCESS is READ ONLY for USER, GROUP, OTHER.

Floppy is a NEC FD1231H P/N 134-506791-302-4 with a Twisted cable to the Motherboard.

Please help me get it working. I assembled another computer and made it
Dual Boot with Win2K and Ubuntu 7.04 and everything works. I used the exact same CDR of Ubuntu 7.04 on both machines. Motherboards were both Mach Speed but the last one was a newer board.

What data do you need to get me to be able to MOUNT and ACCESS the Floppy.
I have noticed several posts of floppy problems with no answers specific to my problem.

Thanks.

Larry K

[Snowhog]

Re: NEC Floppy won't work

Fix to get an insterted floppy to mount

edit /usr/share/apps/systemview/media.desktop
change /media to media:/

This works, but, it also opens full access to the HDs and partitions.

Better: Open System Menu | Storage Media and enter in location bar:
media:/sdd/ [note: /sdd is my floppy drive - you will need to determine yours]

This automounts the floppy!

[lkraemer]

Re: NEC Floppy won't work


Nope, no luck. It gives me error of No Items, No files, No folders.
The drive does run, the head steps, and the screen pops up with
a % bar graph meter that stays at (0) ZERO. Still does not work.
Any other ideas?

LK

[dibl]

Re: NEC Floppy won't work

Geez, it sure looks right to me. Here's mine:

/dev/fd0 /media/floppy0 auto user,atime,noauto,rw,dev,exec,suid 0 0

The only 2 things I can think of to point out are pretty obvious:

1. You gotta have a formatted diskette in there to mount -- it won't work empty.

2. BIOS has to see it too.

:P

[lkraemer]

Re: NEC Floppy won't work


Bios does detect the floppy and works if I insert my Win2K hard drive and boot on it. Everything is fine. Format floppy and Read/Writes to it just fine.

Have formatted floppy's with FMTMAS, DOS 6.6, Win98SE, Win2K and
on my Laptop with Win XP. No luck with getting them to work with
Kubuntu/Ubuntu.

Also removed the drive form the second machine and installed it in this
machine and that doesn't work either. I am at my last straw.

My USB Floppy and USB Flash Drives all work wonderful. Just not the
Floppy that I mounted in the case.

HELP! There has to be something that has been previously documented,
but my searches don't turn up anything helpful.

L Kraemer

[dibl]

Re: NEC Floppy won't work

I Googled the problem and didn't find much either. I found a case where someone running the Hoary version of Ubuntu fixed theirs for mounting DOS/Windows formatted floppies by making the filesystem type "auto,vfat", i.e. my mount line would be changed to read:

/dev/fd0 /media/floppy0 auto,vfat user,atime,noauto,rw,dev,exec,suid 0 0

You could give that a try, but I'm not betting much ... :P

[Snowhog]

Re: NEC Floppy won't work

I also have an external USB floppy drive. Mine works fine. Here is the line from fstab for the device:

/dev/sdd /media/floppy0 auto rw,user,noauto 0 0

Note that the device is identified as sdd not fd0. You need to check how the system has identified your floppy device. The simplest way to do this is to open System Menu | Media Storage and change the URL line from /media to media:/
This should result in a graphical display of the floppy drive (represented by a floppy diskette). Hover the mouse pointer over it to see the device node information. This is what you need to use in the fstab entry.