Can I format a disk in an external floppy drive

Graham Watkins shellycat.gw at ntlworld.com
Sun Aug 24 07:25:39 UTC 2008


Larry wrote:
> Graham Watkins wrote:
>   
>> elmo wrote:
>>   
>>     
>>> Graham Watkins wrote:
>>>   
>>>     
>>>       
>>>> Hi all,
>>>>
>>>> When I got my new computer, it did not have a built-in floppy drive so I 
>>>> bought an external usb model.  Obviously floppy disks don't have much of 
>>>> a future so all I wanted to do was lift any valuable data off them, burn 
>>>> it to a CD and re-format the disks so that they could be given/thrown 
>>>> away.  However, kfloppy does not recognise the drive so I can't do it 
>>>> that way.   fdisk doesn't see it either.    Does anybody know what, if 
>>>> anything I should do to re-format the disks?
>>>>
>>>>   
>>>>     
>>>>       
>>>>         
>>> I use an external floppy..In Windows, it is B:\
>>>
>>> I use it the same way as an A:\ drive, formatting, etc.  I haven't tried 
>>> it in any Linux.
>>>
>>> elmo
>>>
>>>   
>>>     
>>>       
>> Windows is not an option.
>>
>> A correction to my earlier mail: fdisk -l does now show the floppy 
>> device as sdc.  I'm not sure what all those partitions are about though.
>>
>> Disk /dev/sdc: 1 MB, 1474560 bytes
>> 1 heads, 3 sectors/track, 960 cylinders
>> Units = cylinders of 3 * 512 = 1536 bytes
>> Disk identifier: 0x73696420
>>
>> This doesn't look like a partition table
>> Probably you selected the wrong device.
>>
>>    Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
>> /dev/sdc1   ?   639983653   821462684   272218546+  20  Unknown
>> Partition 1 has different physical/logical beginnings (non-Linux?):
>>      phys=(356, 97, 46) logical=(639983652, 0, 3)
>> Partition 1 has different physical/logical endings:
>>      phys=(357, 116, 40) logical=(821462683, 0, 2)
>> Partition 1 does not end on cylinder boundary.
>> /dev/sdc2   ?   443394735   623053497   269488144   6b  Unknown
>> Partition 2 has different physical/logical beginnings (non-Linux?):
>>      phys=(288, 110, 57) logical=(443394734, 0, 1)
>> Partition 2 has different physical/logical endings:
>>      phys=(269, 101, 57) logical=(623053496, 0, 2)
>> Partition 2 does not end on cylinder boundary.
>> /dev/sdc3   ?   179663131   645784101   699181456   53  OnTrack DM6 Aux3
>> Partition 3 has different physical/logical beginnings (non-Linux?):
>>      phys=(345, 32, 19) logical=(179663130, 0, 2)
>> Partition 3 has different physical/logical endings:
>>      phys=(324, 77, 19) logical=(645784100, 0, 3)
>> Partition 3 does not end on cylinder boundary.
>> /dev/sdc4   *   464875888   464883000       10668+  49  Unknown
>> Partition 4 has different physical/logical beginnings (non-Linux?):
>>      phys=(87, 1, 0) logical=(464875887, 0, 3)
>> Partition 4 has different physical/logical endings:
>>      phys=(335, 78, 2) logical=(464882999, 0, 3)
>> Partition 4 does not end on cylinder boundary.
>>
>>
>>   
>>     
> *Try this, to see if it shows your floppy drive...
>
> cd /media then type ls...
>
> Then try mount /dev/fd0, <--- that's a zero...
>
> Mine is internal floppy, which uses the fd0, your's might be alittle 
> different...
>
> See if it will work for you then format it...
>
> Larry
> *
>
>   
There is no fd0.  fds are internal floppy drives. If you look at my 
fdisk output you will see that it's sdc. But that was yesterday - it's 
sdg today.

 I think that this can probably be formatted from the command line. 
Anybody know of a formatting disks for dummies type tutorial?

-- 
Graham Watkins

"To mess up a Linux box, you need to work at it; to mess up your Windows
box, you just need to work on it."
SecurityFocus columnist Scott Granneman.





More information about the ubuntu-users mailing list