Re: argh! linux and floppies
On Sun, Oct 29, 2006 at 12:17:45AM -0400, Mark Grieveson wrote:
> >
> >Mark Grieveson wrote:
> >
> >>>> Has anyone else noticed how awful Linux has become for dealing with
> >>>> floppies (aka A-drive)? Years ago it was not bad, but now, even
> >>>> mtoolsfm doesn't seem to work. . .
> >>>> Mark
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>
> It's frustrating because I've set up a donated computer at my
> workplace. I work in a homeless shelter. People would like to work on
> files (ie, resumes) that they have on disks (floppies) but instead are
> given the following lecture: "mount: i could not determine the
> filesystem type, and none was specified". The answer, of course, is,
> "it's a floppy, you stupid machine."
It is telling you not that it can't find the floppy but that it can't
determine the filesystem type. I've had that. The problem seems to be
with floppies formatted on another system even if its the same type as
if it where made by linux.
If you look in your /etc/fstab for the entry under floppy, you'll
probably see something like:
/dev/fd0 /floppy auto user,noauto 0 0
Its the 'auto' that's the problem.
Read the mount man page and it will describe how it handles 'auto' and
how you can tell it what to try. The other option is suggests is
changing that 'auto' to a comma separated list of possible types, e.g.
vfat,msdos. Try mounting it manually to determine what types to put
here.
Doug.
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