Ok, scratch that. It seems that drivers-3 and -4 don't have this problem (that's ata100-ext3 woody boot disks, btw), so it's not my hardware. Looks like floppy driver in 2.4.17 is way too wobbly -- rawrite doesn't have a problem writing to these floppies. Dima (now lesse if they boot) -- The wombat is a mixture of chalk and clay used for respiration. -- MegaHal