Can I format a disk in an external floppy drive

[Joep L. Blom]

Graham Watkins schreef:
> 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?
> 
I just typed:
  sudo mount /dev/fd0 /media/floppy0/
[sudo] password for joep: password
and then -after some waiting):

  ls -al /media/floppy0/
total 1385
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root   7168 1970-01-01 01:00 .
drwxr-xr-x 9 root root   4096 2008-08-17 17:29 ..
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root  11208 1994-05-31 06:22 attrib.exe
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root     45 2004-03-25 10:39 autoexec.bat
.....

So I don't see why a simple format /media/floppy0/ would'nt work.
(Hardy:  2.6.24-19-generic #1 SMP Fri Jul 11 21:01:46 UTC 2008 x86_64).
I didn't try it but if ubuntu is like fedora (in this respect) it will work.
Joep