Can I format a disk in an external floppy drive - solved
Graham Watkins
shellycat.gw at ntlworld.com
Sun Aug 24 08:16:24 UTC 2008
Joep L. Blom wrote:
> 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
>
>
Tried gfloppy, it recognised /dev/sdg and formatted a disk
successfully. All sorted now.
--
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.
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