Re: [CentOS] floppy drives

2013-04-11 Thread Denniston, Todd A CIV NAVSURFWARCENDIV Crane
 -Original Message-
 From: m.r...@5-cent.us [mailto:m.r...@5-cent.us]
 Sent: Tuesday, April 09, 2013 12:21
 To: CentOS mailing list
 Subject: Re: [CentOS] floppy drives
 
 Frank Cox wrote:
  On Tue, 9 Apr 2013 10:19:33 -0400
  m.r...@5-cent.us wrote:
 
  Hmmm... didn't see it mounted, but I'll try more tonight. Last night
  included a) playing with system, and b) finishing up our federal
  taxes
 
  If you're going to use mtools to do your copying, you don't need to
 mount
  the disks.
 
 mtools is a desperation move, since I haven't actually read anything
 from
 anything yet. As I mentioned, I *may* have an old drive head cleaner
 somewhere - since it's not been used in about a decade, I'm thinking of
 corrosion or crud.
 
 I also can't seem to find the USB 3.5 drive I borrowed - lsusb sees it
 (at least since the last reboot), but trying to find it to mount it is
 something I'm still digging at, and I doubt mtools can find it.
 
  mark
 

Note: the USB floppy may be showing up as /dev/sd[bcd...n]
At least that is what happened when I used one on RHEL/CentOS5 a while back.

I suggest unplugging the USB floppy, execute `ls /dev/sd* /dev/fd*`, 
plug it in and execute `ls /dev/sd* /dev/fd*`, and then note the differences.

{there are probably hal/udev/inotify games you could do, but I like old 
fashioned things.}

Even when this disclaimer is not here:
I am not a contracting officer. I do not have authority to make or modify the 
terms of any contract.


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Re: [CentOS] floppy drives

2013-04-11 Thread m . roth
Denniston, Todd A CIV NAVSURFWARCENDIV Crane wrote:
 From: m.r...@5-cent.us [mailto:m.r...@5-cent.us]
 Frank Cox wrote:
  On Tue, 9 Apr 2013 10:19:33 -0400
  m.r...@5-cent.us wrote:
 
  Hmmm... didn't see it mounted, but I'll try more tonight. Last night
  included a) playing with system, and b) finishing up our federal
  taxes
snip
 I also can't seem to find the USB 3.5 drive I borrowed - lsusb sees it
 (at least since the last reboot), but trying to find it to mount it is
 something I'm still digging at, and I doubt mtools can find it.

 Note: the USB floppy may be showing up as /dev/sd[bcd...n]
 At least that is what happened when I used one on RHEL/CentOS5 a while
 back.

I would think, but don't remember seeing it.

 I suggest unplugging the USB floppy, execute `ls /dev/sd* /dev/fd*`,
 plug it in and execute `ls /dev/sd* /dev/fd*`, and then note the
 differences.

Think I tried that, as well as leaving the USB drive in when I bounced the
system to reset the BIOS. USB storage annoys me, half the time it's try to
find it, the camera card being a prime example. I'll try it this evening,
since we *finally* finished all the taxes last night (MD is nasty: their
downloadable pdf forms are encrypted, so not only is it not saveable after
you enter data, like the fed forms are, but you cannot use either print to
CUPS-pdf, nor can you print to a file, then use ps2pdf)

 {there are probably hal/udev/inotify games you could do, but I like old
 fashioned things.}

Hmmm, don't know them. rescan-scsi-bus... no, I don't *think* that will
register the USB, and I think I mentioned that lsusb shows me the drive,
but I can't identify the driver. Now that I have some time, I'll dig
deeper.


 Even when this disclaimer is not here:
 I am not a contracting officer. I do not have authority to make or modify
 the terms of any contract.

I have a very long disclaimer from my late wife at home, along the lines
of this does not reflect the views of my employer, the US government, or
even the view out my window (which I don't have)

mark

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Re: [CentOS] floppy drives

2013-04-10 Thread James B. Byrne

On Tue, April 9, 2013 13:46, m.r...@5-cent.us wrote:
 Fred Smith wrote:
 On Tue, Apr 09, 2013 at 12:21:10PM -0400, m.r...@5-cent.us wrote:
 Frank Cox wrote:
  On Tue, 9 Apr 2013 10:19:33 -0400
  m.r...@5-cent.us wrote:
 
  Hmmm... didn't see it mounted, but I'll try more tonight. Last
 night
  included a) playing with system, and b) finishing up our federal
  taxes
 snip
 I also can't seem to find the USB 3.5 drive I borrowed - lsusb
 sees it
 (at least since the last reboot), but trying to find it to mount it
 is
 something I'm still digging at, and I doubt mtools can find it.

 As far as I remember (I'm not as young as I used to be, and it's
 been a
 while), the 3.5 USB floppy drive here would recognize a (formatted)
 floppy when inserted and mount it automatically, on Centos 5.x.
 (assuming it contained a recognizable filesystem...)

 Even if there's nothing about floppies in /etc/fstab? Or is that
 something I need to configure for autofs?


Just to obtain some empirical data I have connected a usb 3.5 FDD unit
to my CentOS-6.4 workstation and inserted a previously unused 3.5
HDFD.  The Nautilus system automatically opened a window on my desktop
and I was able to copy and removed files from the diskette without any
difficulty.

A peek into /media shows this:


# tree /media
/media
#9492;#9472;#9472; disk

1 directory, 0 files


While /etc/fstab shows me nothing that obviously relates to the fdd:


# cat /etc/fstab

#
# /etc/fstab
# Created by anaconda on Mon Sep 24 12:57:28 2012
#
# Accessible filesystems, by reference, are maintained under '/dev/disk'
# See man pages fstab(5), findfs(8), mount(8) and/or blkid(8) for more
info
#
/dev/mapper/vg_vhost04-lv_root /   ext4   
defaults1 1
UUID=a9a7cc59-bd0c-4362-9ab6-f721e25df2f8 /boot   ext4
   defaults1 2
/dev/mapper/vg_vhost04-lv_home /home   ext4   
defaults1 2
/dev/mapper/vg_vhost04-lv_tmp /tmpext4defaults
   1 2
/dev/mapper/vg_vhost04-lv_log /var/logext4defaults
   1 2
/dev/mapper/vg_vhost04-lv_spool /var/spool  ext4   
defaults1 2
/dev/mapper/vg_vhost04-lv_swap swapswap   
defaults0 0
tmpfs   /dev/shmtmpfs   defaults  
 0 0
devpts  /dev/ptsdevpts  gid=5,mode=620
 0 0
sysfs   /syssysfs   defaults  
 0 0
proc/proc   procdefaults  
 0 0
/dev/vg_vhost04/lv_centos_repos /var/data/centosext4defaults
00
/dev/vg_vhost04/lv_home_byrnejb /home/byrnejb   ext4defaults0   0

Mount on the other hand shows this:

/dev/sdb on /media/disk type vfat
(rw,nosuid,nodev,uhelper=udisks,uid=500,gid=500,shortname=mixed,dmask=0077,utf8=1,flush)

And udisks show this:

howing information for /org/freedesktop/UDisks/devices/sdb
  native-path:
/sys/devices/pci:00/:00:1a.0/usb3/3-1/3-1:1.0/host10/target10:0:0/10:0:0:0/block/sdb
  device:  8:16
  device-file: /dev/sdb
presentation:  /dev/sdb
by-id:
/dev/disk/by-id/usb-Y-E_DATA_USB_Floppy_Drive
by-path:  
/dev/disk/by-path/pci-:00:1a.0-usb-0:1:1.0-scsi-0:0:0:0
  detected at: Wed 10 Apr 2013 09:08:55  EDT
  system internal: 0
  removable:   1
  has media:   1 (detected at Wed 10 Apr 2013 09:09:07
 EDT)
detects change:1
detection by polling:  1
detection inhibitable: 1
detection inhibited:   0
  is read only:0
  is mounted:  1
  mount paths: /media/disk
  mounted by uid:  500
  presentation hide:   0
  presentation nopolicy:   0
  presentation name:
  presentation icon:
  size:1474560
  block size:  512
  job underway:no
  usage:   filesystem
  type:vfat
  version: FAT12
  uuid:
  label:
  drive:
vendor:Y-E DATA
model: USB Floppy Drive
revision:  0601
serial:
WWN:
detachable:1
can spindown:  0
rotational media:  Yes, unknown rate
write-cache:   unknown
ejectable: 0
adapter:   Unknown
ports:
similar devices:
media: floppy
  compat:  floppy
interface: usb
if speed:  1200 bits/s
ATA SMART: not available

-- 
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Harte  Lyne Limited  http://www.harte-lyne.ca
9 

Re: [CentOS] floppy drives [gone OT, M$ Word 2010 rant]

2013-04-10 Thread m . roth
James B. Byrne wrote:

 On Tue, April 9, 2013 13:46, m.r...@5-cent.us wrote:
 Fred Smith wrote:
 On Tue, Apr 09, 2013 at 12:21:10PM -0400, m.r...@5-cent.us wrote:
 Frank Cox wrote:
  On Tue, 9 Apr 2013 10:19:33 -0400
  m.r...@5-cent.us wrote:
 
  Hmmm... didn't see it mounted, but I'll try more tonight. Last
  night included a) playing with system, and b) finishing up our
federal
  taxes
 snip
 I also can't seem to find the USB 3.5 drive I borrowed - lsusb
 sees it (at least since the last reboot), but trying to find it to
mount it
 is something I'm still digging at, and I doubt mtools can find it.
snip
 Even if there's nothing about floppies in /etc/fstab? Or is that
 something I need to configure for autofs?

 Just to obtain some empirical data I have connected a usb 3.5 FDD unit
 to my CentOS-6.4 workstation and inserted a previously unused 3.5
 HDFD.  The Nautilus system automatically opened a window on my desktop
 and I was able to copy and removed files from the diskette without any
 difficulty.

interesting data snipped

I need to look at this more closely, which I'll do this evening. Last
night, I didn't get to touch it - got one state and one commonwealth worth
of taxes to finish, and then there was the document that I had to get to
my (contracting co) manager, whose formatting was screwed up in
libreoffice, and I *had* to use my work laptop and M$ Office, and Word
rant
I thought 07, was it? was Not Good; this is absolute and UTTER CRAP. For
example, I want some bullet points, and if a sentence is longer than one
line, I want the second and any other lines indented from the start of the
bullet.

Couldn't do it. Wouldn't let me.

And trying to copy from an editable field, and it only giving me the whole
section, not just what I was highlighting And on, and on

In conclusion, Office 2010, esp. on a laptop, makes me want to beat the
laptop on fireplug until it's rubble, and then head on across the country
to Redmond, picking up a machine gun and grenades on the way.
/rant

Sorry, way off topic

   mark

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Re: [CentOS] floppy drives

2013-04-09 Thread David G . Miller
mark m.roth@... writes:

SNIP
 But I'm over the first hump. Now I'm playing with /dev/fd1 and 
 /dev/floppy-fd1 (and why is it trying to read a superblock when I try to 
 mount it, when I've said -t msdos? Oh, well, onward in the fight.)
 
   mark
 
I think mount uses the same error string (possibly from ERRNO) whenever it
can't find the appropriate file system structure on a device.  Thus, you get
Unable to read superblock even when mount -t msdos is looking for a FAT
and FAT root directory.

Cheers,
Dave



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Re: [CentOS] floppy drives

2013-04-09 Thread m . roth
David G. Miller wrote:
 mark m.roth@... writes:

 SNIP
 But I'm over the first hump. Now I'm playing with /dev/fd1 and
 /dev/floppy-fd1 (and why is it trying to read a superblock when I try to
 mount it, when I've said -t msdos? Oh, well, onward in the fight.)

 I think mount uses the same error string (possibly from ERRNO) whenever it
 can't find the appropriate file system structure on a device.  Thus, you
 get Unable to read superblock even when mount -t msdos is looking for
a FAT
 and FAT root directory.

Hmmm... didn't see it mounted, but I'll try more tonight. Last night
included a) playing with system, and b) finishing up our federal taxes

 mark and getting a headache

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Re: [CentOS] floppy drives

2013-04-09 Thread Frank Cox
On Tue, 9 Apr 2013 10:19:33 -0400
m.r...@5-cent.us wrote:

 Hmmm... didn't see it mounted, but I'll try more tonight. Last night
 included a) playing with system, and b) finishing up our federal taxes

If you're going to use mtools to do your copying, you don't need to mount the
disks.

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Re: [CentOS] floppy drives

2013-04-09 Thread m . roth
Frank Cox wrote:
 On Tue, 9 Apr 2013 10:19:33 -0400
 m.r...@5-cent.us wrote:

 Hmmm... didn't see it mounted, but I'll try more tonight. Last night
 included a) playing with system, and b) finishing up our federal
 taxes

 If you're going to use mtools to do your copying, you don't need to mount
 the disks.

mtools is a desperation move, since I haven't actually read anything from
anything yet. As I mentioned, I *may* have an old drive head cleaner
somewhere - since it's not been used in about a decade, I'm thinking of
corrosion or crud.

I also can't seem to find the USB 3.5 drive I borrowed - lsusb sees it
(at least since the last reboot), but trying to find it to mount it is
something I'm still digging at, and I doubt mtools can find it.

 mark

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Re: [CentOS] floppy drives

2013-04-09 Thread Fred Smith
On Tue, Apr 09, 2013 at 12:21:10PM -0400, m.r...@5-cent.us wrote:
 Frank Cox wrote:
  On Tue, 9 Apr 2013 10:19:33 -0400
  m.r...@5-cent.us wrote:
 
  Hmmm... didn't see it mounted, but I'll try more tonight. Last night
  included a) playing with system, and b) finishing up our federal
  taxes
 
  If you're going to use mtools to do your copying, you don't need to mount
  the disks.
 
 mtools is a desperation move, since I haven't actually read anything from
 anything yet. As I mentioned, I *may* have an old drive head cleaner
 somewhere - since it's not been used in about a decade, I'm thinking of
 corrosion or crud.
 
 I also can't seem to find the USB 3.5 drive I borrowed - lsusb sees it
 (at least since the last reboot), but trying to find it to mount it is
 something I'm still digging at, and I doubt mtools can find it.
 
  mark

As far as I remember (I'm not as young as I used to be, and it's been a
while), the 3.5 USB floppy drive here would recognize a (formatted)
floppy when inserted and mount it automatically, on Centos 5.x.
(assuming it contained a recognizable filesystem...)

now that Im running 6.4, I haven't tried the floppy drive yet.

(I have piles and stacks and drawers of 5.25 and 3.5 inch floppies with
various stuff stored on 'em. I used that usb drive (and an internal 5.25
inch drive) to grab images of all of them (with dd) which I'll eventually
organize and burn onto CD or DVD, so I can get rid of all the floppies.)

Fred

-- 
 Fred Smith -- fre...@fcshome.stoneham.ma.us -
   I can do all things through Christ 
  who strengthens me.
-- Philippians 4:13 ---
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Re: [CentOS] floppy drives

2013-04-09 Thread Les Mikesell
On Tue, Apr 9, 2013 at 12:46 PM,  m.r...@5-cent.us wrote:

 (I have piles and stacks and drawers of 5.25 and 3.5 inch floppies with
 various stuff stored on 'em. I used that usb drive (and an internal 5.25
 inch drive) to grab images of all of them (with dd) which I'll eventually
 organize and burn onto CD or DVD, so I can get rid of all the floppies.)

 Exactly my goal right now.

Do you get anything (besides an error) if you try to dd the device to a file?

--
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 lesmikes...@gmail.com
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Re: [CentOS] floppy drives

2013-04-09 Thread m . roth
Les Mikesell wrote:
 On Tue, Apr 9, 2013 at 12:46 PM,  m.r...@5-cent.us wrote:

 (I have piles and stacks and drawers of 5.25 and 3.5 inch floppies with
 various stuff stored on 'em. I used that usb drive (and an internal
 5.25 inch drive) to grab images of all of them (with dd) which I'll
 eventually organize and burn onto CD or DVD, so I can get rid of all the
 floppies.)

 Exactly my goal right now.

 Do you get anything (besides an error) if you try to dd the device to a
 file?

I sorta-kinda tried that, and got zero bytes. I can try it again, more
seriously, tonight.

 mark

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Re: [CentOS] floppy drives

2013-04-09 Thread Fred Smith
On Tue, Apr 09, 2013 at 01:46:09PM -0400, m.r...@5-cent.us wrote:
 Fred Smith wrote:
  On Tue, Apr 09, 2013 at 12:21:10PM -0400, m.r...@5-cent.us wrote:
  Frank Cox wrote:
   On Tue, 9 Apr 2013 10:19:33 -0400
   m.r...@5-cent.us wrote:
  
   Hmmm... didn't see it mounted, but I'll try more tonight. Last night
   included a) playing with system, and b) finishing up our federal
   taxes
 snip
  I also can't seem to find the USB 3.5 drive I borrowed - lsusb sees it
  (at least since the last reboot), but trying to find it to mount it is
  something I'm still digging at, and I doubt mtools can find it.
 
  As far as I remember (I'm not as young as I used to be, and it's been a
  while), the 3.5 USB floppy drive here would recognize a (formatted)
  floppy when inserted and mount it automatically, on Centos 5.x.
  (assuming it contained a recognizable filesystem...)
 
 Even if there's nothing about floppies in /etc/fstab? Or is that something
 I need to configure for autofs?

As far as I can remember, yes.

 
  now that Im running 6.4, I haven't tried the floppy drive yet.

I'll try it on the 6.4 system that's now running on that box and see
what happens.


 
  (I have piles and stacks and drawers of 5.25 and 3.5 inch floppies with
  various stuff stored on 'em. I used that usb drive (and an internal 5.25
  inch drive) to grab images of all of them (with dd) which I'll eventually
  organize and burn onto CD or DVD, so I can get rid of all the floppies.)
 
 Exactly my goal right now.
 
  mark

-- 
 Fred Smith -- fre...@fcshome.stoneham.ma.us 
Do you not know? Have you not heard? 
The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. 
  He will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding no one can fathom.
- Isaiah 40:28 (niv) -
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Re: [CentOS] floppy drives

2013-04-08 Thread Nicolas Thierry-Mieg
Le 08/04/2013 02:23, mark a écrit :
 On 04/07/13 19:53, John R. Dennison wrote:
 On Sun, Apr 07, 2013 at 07:35:17PM -0400, mark wrote:

 ls -l /dev/fd?

 What do you see?

 lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 13 Apr  7 15:03 /dev/fd - /proc/self/fd/

 Interesting as that doesn't match the pattern /dev/fd?

 fd0 should have been shown by the ls -l /dev/fd? pattern so is that a
 broken link?

  Ok, ll /dev/fd - which is a directory - shows it pointing to
  /proc/self/fd/. Under tghat is 0-3, where 0-2 are links to /dev/pts/0,
  *all* the same. 3 is a link to /proc/5038/fd/, which does not exist.

you were asked to type
ls -l /dev/fd?
the question mark is part of what you have to type...

another poster explained that /dev/fd/ has nothing to do with floppies.


 If this still fails ensure that the device is enabled in the system's
 bios.  Speaking of that, is the device seen at boot time?

 dmesg | grep ^Floppy or grep ^Floppy /var/log/dmesg should show fd0
 and a size.


 Is it time to try MAKEDEV?

maybe first try ls -l /dev/fd?
and then dmesg


Note that I've had a lot of old floppies that were dead when I tried to 
read them after many years.
For me, 3/3 isn't conclusive. I would try to read at least 10 or 20 
floppies before deciding that it's a drive or driver issue.
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Re: [CentOS] floppy drives

2013-04-08 Thread mark
On 04/08/13 04:43, Nicolas Thierry-Mieg wrote:
 Le 08/04/2013 02:23, mark a écrit :
 On 04/07/13 19:53, John R. Dennison wrote:
 On Sun, Apr 07, 2013 at 07:35:17PM -0400, mark wrote:

 ls -l /dev/fd?

 What do you see?

 lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 13 Apr  7 15:03 /dev/fd - /proc/self/fd/

 Interesting as that doesn't match the pattern /dev/fd?

 fd0 should have been shown by the ls -l /dev/fd? pattern so is that a
 broken link?

Ok, ll /dev/fd - which is a directory - shows it pointing to
/proc/self/fd/. Under tghat is 0-3, where 0-2 are links to /dev/pts/0,
*all* the same. 3 is a link to /proc/5038/fd/, which does not exist.

 you were asked to type
 ls -l /dev/fd?
 the question mark is part of what you have to type...

Perhaps you didn't understand what I wrote in the paragraph that you cut 
out.
**
  If ls -l /dev/fd0* does not show a series of device nodes try:

It does - /dev/fd0, along with all 14 sizes of floppies, of a patter 
/dev/fd0udisk capacity
**

Now, if that's not clear enough for you, let me rephrase: /dev/fd0 
exists, as does the related ones, as far as I know (note that ll for me 
is aliased to ls -laF).

brw-rw 1 mark floppy 2,   0 Apr  7 15:03 /dev/fd0
brw-rw 1 mark floppy 2,  84 Apr  7 15:03 /dev/fd0u1040
brw-rw 1 mark floppy 2,  88 Apr  7 15:03 /dev/fd0u1120
brw-rw 1 mark floppy 2,  28 Apr  7 15:03 /dev/fd0u1440
brw-rw 1 mark floppy 2,  44 Apr  7 15:03 /dev/fd0u1680
brw-rw 1 mark floppy 2,  60 Apr  7 15:03 /dev/fd0u1722
brw-rw 1 mark floppy 2,  76 Apr  7 15:03 /dev/fd0u1743
brw-rw 1 mark floppy 2,  96 Apr  7 15:03 /dev/fd0u1760
brw-rw 1 mark floppy 2, 116 Apr  7 15:03 /dev/fd0u1840
brw-rw 1 mark floppy 2, 100 Apr  7 15:03 /dev/fd0u1920
brw-rw 1 mark floppy 2,  12 Apr  7 15:03 /dev/fd0u360
brw-rw 1 mark floppy 2,  16 Apr  7 15:03 /dev/fd0u720
brw-rw 1 mark floppy 2, 120 Apr  7 15:03 /dev/fd0u800
brw-rw 1 mark floppy 2,  52 Apr  7 15:03 /dev/fd0u820
brw-rw 1 mark floppy 2,  68 Apr  7 15:03 /dev/fd0u830

Is that clear enough?

mark

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Re: [CentOS] floppy drives

2013-04-08 Thread Louis Lagendijk
On Sun, 2013-04-07 at 15:45 -0400, mark wrote:
 Yes, really. I've got hundreds of the damn things here at home, and I 
 want to go through them and get rid of them all.
 
 But... to do that I want to read them. I have both a 5.25 and a 3.5 
 drive, both are plugged in, but in the BIOS, all I see is the 3.5. 
 Fine, I figure I'll take care of those.
 
 Nope. I see /dev/fd0 once I've booted up, but neither konqueror nor 
 mount nor fdisk works - the latter telling me that /dev/fd0 is not a 
 valid block device. After some googling, I tried modprobe floppy, which 
 installed it, but still no joy.
 
 Anyone have a clue?
 
   mark
Mark, you said that both floppy drives are connected. Could it be that
both are wired to fd0? One drive could be malfunctioning Try with
only one drive connected at a time at the end of the cable and see if
that helps...
Louis

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Re: [CentOS] floppy drives

2013-04-08 Thread Johnny Hughes
On 04/07/2013 07:26 PM, mark wrote:
 On 04/07/13 19:53, John R. Dennison wrote:
 On Sun, Apr 07, 2013 at 07:35:17PM -0400, mark wrote:
 ls -l /dev/fd?

 What do you see?

 lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 13 Apr  7 15:03 /dev/fd - /proc/self/fd/
 Interesting as that doesn't match the pattern /dev/fd?

 And, while we're at it, ll of /dev/floppy shows

 lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 3 Apr  7 15:03 /dev/floppy - fd0
 fd0 should have been shown by the ls -l /dev/fd? pattern so is that a
 broken link?

 lsmod | grep floppy - does it show the floppy module loaded?

 If ls -l /dev/fd0* does not show a series of device nodes try:
 It does - /dev/fd0, along with all 14 sizes of floppies, of a patter 
 /dev/fd0udisk capacity
 snip

I saw in an earlier part of the thread, you were trying to do things to
A: ... A: is a windows device, not a Linux device

Make sure you are trying to do things to /dev/fd0 and not A:



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Re: [CentOS] floppy drives

2013-04-08 Thread Dale Dellutri
On Sun, Apr 7, 2013 at 2:45 PM, mark m.r...@5-cent.us wrote:

 Yes, really. I've got hundreds of the damn things here at home, and I
 want to go through them and get rid of them all.

 But... to do that I want to read them. I have both a 5.25 and a 3.5
 drive, both are plugged in, but in the BIOS, all I see is the 3.5.
 Fine, I figure I'll take care of those.

 Nope. I see /dev/fd0 once I've booted up, but neither konqueror nor
 mount nor fdisk works - the latter telling me that /dev/fd0 is not a
 valid block device. After some googling, I tried modprobe floppy, which
 installed it, but still no joy.

 Anyone have a clue?


To debug this, I'd do the following:

1. Remove both USB plugs (I assume that these floppies are USB connected)
2. Reboot
3. Plug just one in, then do
  lsusb
and get the end of /var/log/messages
One of these might tell you where the floppy is connected in /dev.  It
might not
be /dev/fd0
4. If it doesn't show up immediately, try putting in a floppy disk and do 3
again.
5. If it doesn't show up again, then it's probably dead.
6. If it does show, perhaps at /dev/sdb1, then create a file .mtoolsrc:
  # USB drive
  drive u: file=/dev/sdb1
Then do
  mdir u:

Of course, it will probably show up at /dev/fdn.

Just my pre-tax 2 cents.

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Re: [CentOS] floppy drives

2013-04-08 Thread m . roth
Johnny Hughes wrote:
snip
 I saw in an earlier part of the thread, you were trying to do things to
 A: ... A: is a windows device, not a Linux device

 Make sure you are trying to do things to /dev/fd0 and not A:

Oh, of course. I was trying mdir, I think - that's an mtools thing - they
use a: internally to represent /dev/fd0.

mark

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Re: [CentOS] floppy drives

2013-04-08 Thread Les Mikesell
On Mon, Apr 8, 2013 at 10:19 AM, Johnny Hughes joh...@centos.org wrote:
 If ls -l /dev/fd0* does not show a series of device nodes try:
 It does - /dev/fd0, along with all 14 sizes of floppies, of a patter
 /dev/fd0udisk capacity
 snip

 I saw in an earlier part of the thread, you were trying to do things to
 A: ... A: is a windows device, not a Linux device

 Make sure you are trying to do things to /dev/fd0 and not A:

That was in the context of the 'mtools' programs - which do map the
devices to dos-like letters but failed in the same way with a problem
with the underlying device.  But as someone else mentioned, if 2
drives are plugged in, it may be trying the wrong device.

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Re: [CentOS] floppy drives

2013-04-08 Thread m . roth
Hi, Louis,

Louis Lagendijk wrote:
 On Sun, 2013-04-07 at 15:45 -0400, mark wrote:
 Yes, really. I've got hundreds of the damn things here at home, and I
 want to go through them and get rid of them all.

 But... to do that I want to read them. I have both a 5.25 and a 3.5
 drive, both are plugged in, but in the BIOS, all I see is the 3.5.
 Fine, I figure I'll take care of those.

 Nope. I see /dev/fd0 once I've booted up, but neither konqueror nor
 mount nor fdisk works - the latter telling me that /dev/fd0 is not a
 valid block device. After some googling, I tried modprobe floppy, which
 installed it, but still no joy.

 Anyone have a clue?

 Mark, you said that both floppy drives are connected. Could it be that
 both are wired to fd0? One drive could be malfunctioning Try with
 only one drive connected at a time at the end of the cable and see if
 that helps...

Good thought... but I think I had one of them disconnected before I took
my system down yesterday and connected both. I will note that the 5.25
one's light does seem to stay on, regardless.

I was speaking about it to my manager this morning, and he pulls out a
3.5 USB drive I can borrow, so I'll take my system down, pull the 3.5,
and see what I see.

  mark

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Re: [CentOS] floppy drives

2013-04-08 Thread David G . Miller
mark m.roth@... writes:

 
 On 04/07/13 16:22, Frank Cox wrote:
  On Sun, 07 Apr 2013 16:18:29 -0400
  mark wrote:
 
  All of 'em are old DOS. Just tried mdir a:, and the same: can't open,
  can't initials A:. I really doubt the drives themselves are dead, but
 
  Floppy disks have a finite usable life.  Depending on where and how you have
  been storing them, they may be shot.
 
 Yeah, but I tried three of 'em, three different OEM, and three ages, 
 and they all give me fdisk saying it's not a valid block device.
 
 Is it possibly that there's some driver missing?
Floppy drives also have a limited lifetime.  Are you sure the drive itself
(not the disk) is good?

I also have a bunch of old floppies and try to keep at least one system with
a working floppy drive.  I see:

[dave@waste ~]# ls /dev/fd*
/dev/fd@   /dev/fd0u1120  /dev/fd0u1722  /dev/fd0u1840  /dev/fd0u720 
/dev/fd0u830
/dev/fd0   /dev/fd0u1440  /dev/fd0u1743  /dev/fd0u1920  /dev/fd0u800
/dev/fd0u1040  /dev/fd0u1680  /dev/fd0u1760  /dev/fd0u360   /dev/fd0u820
[dave@waste ~]# ls -l /dev/floppy
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 3 Apr  3 17:17 /dev/floppy - fd0
[dave@waste ~]# lsmod | grep floppy
floppy 57125  0 

on that system and it reads and writes floppies.

Cheers,
Dave

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Re: [CentOS] floppy drives

2013-04-08 Thread Max Pyziur
On Mon, 8 Apr 2013, David G. Miller wrote:

 mark m.roth@... writes:


 On 04/07/13 16:22, Frank Cox wrote:
 On Sun, 07 Apr 2013 16:18:29 -0400
 mark wrote:

 All of 'em are old DOS. Just tried mdir a:, and the same: can't open,
 can't initials A:. I really doubt the drives themselves are dead, but

 Floppy disks have a finite usable life.  Depending on where and how you have
 been storing them, they may be shot.

 Yeah, but I tried three of 'em, three different OEM, and three ages,
 and they all give me fdisk saying it's not a valid block device.

 Is it possibly that there's some driver missing?
 Floppy drives also have a limited lifetime.  Are you sure the drive itself
 (not the disk) is good?

 I also have a bunch of old floppies and try to keep at least one system with
 a working floppy drive.  I see:

 [dave@waste ~]# ls /dev/fd*
 /dev/fd@   /dev/fd0u1120  /dev/fd0u1722  /dev/fd0u1840  /dev/fd0u720
 /dev/fd0u830
 /dev/fd0   /dev/fd0u1440  /dev/fd0u1743  /dev/fd0u1920  /dev/fd0u800
 /dev/fd0u1040  /dev/fd0u1680  /dev/fd0u1760  /dev/fd0u360   /dev/fd0u820
 [dave@waste ~]# ls -l /dev/floppy
 lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 3 Apr  3 17:17 /dev/floppy - fd0
 [dave@waste ~]# lsmod | grep floppy
 floppy 57125  0

 on that system and it reads and writes floppies.

Any chance that we could see your /etc/fstab, at least those lines 
regarding floppies?

Or is that personal?

 Cheers,
 Dave

Max Pyziur
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Re: [CentOS] floppy drives

2013-04-08 Thread m . roth
Max Pyziur wrote:
 On Mon, 8 Apr 2013, David G. Miller wrote:
 mark m.roth@... writes:
 On 04/07/13 16:22, Frank Cox wrote:
 On Sun, 07 Apr 2013 16:18:29 -0400
 mark wrote:

 All of 'em are old DOS. Just tried mdir a:, and the same: can't open,
 can't initials A:. I really doubt the drives themselves are dead,
 but

 Floppy disks have a finite usable life.  Depending on where and how
 you have been storing them, they may be shot.

*shrug* In houses, apts, where I live, not in storage (except possibly for
a couple months, and that was all climate-controlled storage).
snip
 Is it possibly that there's some driver missing?
 Floppy drives also have a limited lifetime.  Are you sure the drive
 itself (not the disk) is good?

That I don't know, and was trying to think of a way to test it. As I noted
in another post, the 5.25 light seems to stay on, and I *think* that was
the one I had disconnected before. I also think I mentioned that after
bringing it down, connecting, and rebooting, I looked at the BIOS, and it
told me it *only* saw the 3.5 drive.
snip
 Any chance that we could see your /etc/fstab, at least those lines
 regarding floppies?

 Or is that personal?

a) Not at home.
b) Not really relevant, since I don't have a floppy entry in it, just my
h/d partitions.

It *looks* like udev knows about it, since it created /dev/fd0 and the
related devices.

Btw, I updated before I brought it down, so it's on current 5.9.

  mark
   mark

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Re: [CentOS] floppy drives

2013-04-08 Thread John R Pierce
On 4/8/2013 9:00 AM, Les Mikesell wrote:
 That was in the context of the 'mtools' programs - which do map the
 devices to dos-like letters but failed in the same way with a problem
 with the underlying device.  But as someone else mentioned, if 2
 drives are plugged in, it may be trying the wrong device.

if I remember correctly, PC floppies require a cable with a twisted bit 
in it.  both drives are jumpered for disk1, and the flip makes the end 
drive disk0   if you used a straight through ribbon cable and both 
drives were jumpered for the default, then they would have collided and 
not worked.

its been 10 years since I've hooked one up, so this is from old memories.


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Re: [CentOS] floppy drives

2013-04-08 Thread John R Pierce
On 4/8/2013 7:58 AM, m.r...@5-cent.us wrote:
 Good thought... but I think I had one of them disconnected before I took
 my system down yesterday and connected both. I will note that the 5.25
 one's light does seem to stay on, regardless.

OH.   another rusty old memory.  if you plugged a floppy cable in upside 
down (only possible if the cable wasn't keyed, but I remember quite a 
few that werent), it grounded both drive select and write select, and 
the drive would write nulls (or something) all over any track that was 
seeked to, without even sector formatting.   this would, of course, 
erase any disk you inserted.  also, the LED would stay on.




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Re: [CentOS] floppy drives

2013-04-08 Thread Louis Lagendijk
On Mon, 2013-04-08 at 12:21 -0400, m.r...@5-cent.us wrote:

 That I don't know, and was trying to think of a way to test it. As I noted
 in another post, the 5.25 light seems to stay on, and I *think* that was
 the one I had disconnected before. I also think I mentioned that after
 bringing it down, connecting, and rebooting, I looked at the BIOS, and it
 told me it *only* saw the 3.5 drive.
 snip
That is why I thought of the cable/drive issue. Please keep in mind that
the bios versions I recall did not detect a drive unless it was told
that there was one (you had to even specify the type/ format of the
drive)
  Any chance that 
 It *looks* like udev knows about it, since it created /dev/fd0 and the
 related devices.
 
From what I recall, the OS gets the information on what is there from
the bios. Look around in the bios and check if you can specify the
format of the floppy drives somewhere...
And the comment about checking if the cable has been put on upside down
(on either side). Please note tat the twist in the cable sits between
drive a and b. Still 4 possibilities to try.

Louis


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Re: [CentOS] floppy drives

2013-04-08 Thread m . roth
John R Pierce wrote:
 On 4/8/2013 7:58 AM, m.r...@5-cent.us wrote:
 Good thought... but I think I had one of them disconnected before I took
 my system down yesterday and connected both. I will note that the 5.25
 one's light does seem to stay on, regardless.

 OH.   another rusty old memory.  if you plugged a floppy cable in upside
 down (only possible if the cable wasn't keyed, but I remember quite a
 few that werent), it grounded both drive select and write select, and
 the drive would write nulls (or something) all over any track that was
 seeked to, without even sector formatting.   this would, of course,
 erase any disk you inserted.  also, the LED would stay on.

I *think* these cables are keyed - they're relatively new, but I'll
check. I still think I had the 5.25 power on, but not the cable
Something to check this evening.

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Re: [CentOS] floppy drives

2013-04-08 Thread m . roth
Louis Lagendijk wrote:
 On Mon, 2013-04-08 at 12:21 -0400, m.r...@5-cent.us wrote:

 That I don't know, and was trying to think of a way to test it. As I
 noted in another post, the 5.25 light seems to stay on, and I *think*
that
 was the one I had disconnected before. I also think I mentioned that after
 bringing it down, connecting, and rebooting, I looked at the BIOS, and
 it told me it *only* saw the 3.5 drive.
 snip
 That is why I thought of the cable/drive issue. Please keep in mind that
 the bios versions I recall did not detect a drive unless it was told
 that there was one (you had to even specify the type/ format of the
 drive)
  Any chance that
 It *looks* like udev knows about it, since it created /dev/fd0 and the
 related devices.

From what I recall, the OS gets the information on what is there from
 the bios. Look around in the bios and check if you can specify the
 format of the floppy drives somewhere...
 And the comment about checking if the cable has been put on upside down
 (on either side). Please note tat the twist in the cable sits between
 drive a and b. Still 4 possibilities to try.

OH! I thought, since the m/b is from '05 or '06, that it would detect the
floppy drives, but *that* I need to look at. Thanks!

  mark

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Re: [CentOS] floppy drives

2013-04-08 Thread John R Pierce
On 4/8/2013 9:57 AM, m.r...@5-cent.us wrote:
 OH! I thought, since the m/b is from '05 or '06, that it would detect the
 floppy drives, but*that*  I need to look at. Thanks!

the floppy interface was really low level.all parallel signals, like 
select drive, step, direction, head select, serial data, clock, write 
enable, and a status line for home, and index (the hole in the disk that 
said its at sector 0).

the ONLY way to detect a drive is connected was to STEP outwards 100 
times, checking for the 'home' status each time, this takes several 
seconds per drive.   AFAIK, there was no way electrically to tell the 
difference between drive types, unless there's a reliable disk in the 
drive.   so the BIOS's pretty much stopped doing the 
auto-home-and-detect thing early on when floppies became optional 
because it was /so/ slow and added significant time to POST.   and even 
from the very beginning, you have to configure the BIOS for the drive 
types (heck, early hard disks had to be configured in the BIOS too)



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Re: [CentOS] floppy drives

2013-04-08 Thread m . roth
John R Pierce wrote:
 On 4/8/2013 9:57 AM, m.r...@5-cent.us wrote:
 OH! I thought, since the m/b is from '05 or '06, that it would detect
 the floppy drives, but*that*  I need to look at. Thanks!

 the floppy interface was really low level.all parallel signals, like
 select drive, step, direction, head select, serial data, clock, write
 enable, and a status line for home, and index (the hole in the disk that
 said its at sector 0).
snip
 drive.   so the BIOS's pretty much stopped doing the
 auto-home-and-detect thing early on when floppies became optional
 because it was /so/ slow and added significant time to POST.   and even
snip
But post, if memory check is enabled, *does* take a long time... oh,
that's right, that was on the server with -256G-

  mark and my mind SEGV's whenever I say that

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Re: [CentOS] floppy drives

2013-04-08 Thread m . roth
Dale Dellutri wrote:
 On Sun, Apr 7, 2013 at 2:45 PM, mark m.r...@5-cent.us wrote:

 Yes, really. I've got hundreds of the damn things here at home, and I
 want to go through them and get rid of them all.

 But... to do that I want to read them. I have both a 5.25 and a 3.5
 drive, both are plugged in, but in the BIOS, all I see is the 3.5.
 Fine, I figure I'll take care of those.

 Nope. I see /dev/fd0 once I've booted up, but neither konqueror nor
 mount nor fdisk works - the latter telling me that /dev/fd0 is not a
 valid block device. After some googling, I tried modprobe floppy, which
 installed it, but still no joy.

 Anyone have a clue?


 To debug this, I'd do the following:

 1. Remove both USB plugs (I assume that these floppies are USB connected)

Wrong assumption. They're on the FD cable to the m/b. I've got some *old*
hardware
snip
 Of course, it will probably show up at /dev/fdn.

 Just my pre-tax 2 cents.

I'll tell my wife, who's working on the taxes, to include that as
income g

mark

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Re: [CentOS] floppy drives

2013-04-08 Thread Max Pyziur
On Mon, 8 Apr 2013, Louis Lagendijk wrote:

 On Sun, 2013-04-07 at 15:45 -0400, mark wrote:
 Yes, really. I've got hundreds of the damn things here at home, and I
 want to go through them and get rid of them all.

 But... to do that I want to read them. I have both a 5.25 and a 3.5
 drive, both are plugged in, but in the BIOS, all I see is the 3.5.
 Fine, I figure I'll take care of those.

 Nope. I see /dev/fd0 once I've booted up, but neither konqueror nor
 mount nor fdisk works - the latter telling me that /dev/fd0 is not a
 valid block device. After some googling, I tried modprobe floppy, which
 installed it, but still no joy.

 Anyone have a clue?

  mark
 Mark, you said that both floppy drives are connected. Could it be that
 both are wired to fd0? One drive could be malfunctioning Try with
 only one drive connected at a time at the end of the cable and see if
 that helps...
 Louis

Separately, on some Ubuntu boards there has been discussion about a 
program called udisks for disk-related issues. It is available for CentOS 
6, not for CentOS 5. Where mount commands have failed, udisks for these 
Ubuntu users has come through.

Ironically, this discussion got me interested in whether or not the floppy 
drive on a home server running CentOS 5 is accessible via CentOS5. It 
isn't; no heartbreak, just a mild annoyance.


Max Pyziur
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Re: [CentOS] floppy drives

2013-04-08 Thread mark
On 04/08/13 12:55, Louis Lagendijk wrote:
 On Mon, 2013-04-08 at 12:21 -0400, m.r...@5-cent.us wrote:

 That I don't know, and was trying to think of a way to test it. As I noted
 in another post, the 5.25 light seems to stay on, and I *think* that was
 the one I had disconnected before. I also think I mentioned that after
 bringing it down, connecting, and rebooting, I looked at the BIOS, and it
 told me it *only* saw the 3.5 drive.
 snip
 That is why I thought of the cable/drive issue. Please keep in mind that
 the bios versions I recall did not detect a drive unless it was told
 that there was one (you had to even specify the type/ format of the
 drive)
 Any chance that
snip

You gents nailed it. I brought my machine down again, and set the BIOS 
to see the 1.2M as a, and the 1.44 as b: while it was down, before I did 
that, I looked... I'm sure the cable was on, but it's really hard to see 
the open side of the case still covers about a third of the board, and 
with all the cables Pulling out my trusty minimag, and moving 
cables... and it was upside down. I don't know how it got on that way, 
certainly I wouldn't have forced it, but flipped it over, and played 
with the BIOS... the 3.5 drive still doesn't work... but the 1.2M 
floppy, as b: *does* work - light goes on only when I try to read it, 
and not otherwise.

Now I don't know if I have a drive cleaner, since I can't believe none 
of the first 10 or so disks I tried to look at was readable.

But I'm over the first hump. Now I'm playing with /dev/fd1 and 
/dev/floppy-fd1 (and why is it trying to read a superblock when I try to 
mount it, when I've said -t msdos? Oh, well, onward in the fight.)

mark




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Re: [CentOS] floppy drives

2013-04-07 Thread Les Mikesell
On Sun, Apr 7, 2013 at 2:45 PM, mark m.r...@5-cent.us wrote:
 Yes, really. I've got hundreds of the damn things here at home, and I
 want to go through them and get rid of them all.

 But... to do that I want to read them. I have both a 5.25 and a 3.5
 drive, both are plugged in, but in the BIOS, all I see is the 3.5.
 Fine, I figure I'll take care of those.

 Nope. I see /dev/fd0 once I've booted up, but neither konqueror nor
 mount nor fdisk works - the latter telling me that /dev/fd0 is not a
 valid block device. After some googling, I tried modprobe floppy, which
 installed it, but still no joy.

 Anyone have a clue?

What file system is on them?  Or did you do something like raw tar
writes to them?   If it is typical dos/window FAT, try the programs
from the mtools package. mdir, mcopy, etc.   I hate to fight with
stuff like that so I'd probably use a windows box connected to a samba
share to move things over.

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Re: [CentOS] floppy drives

2013-04-07 Thread mark
On 04/07/13 16:04, Les Mikesell wrote:
 On Sun, Apr 7, 2013 at 2:45 PM, mark m.r...@5-cent.us wrote:
 Yes, really. I've got hundreds of the damn things here at home, and I
 want to go through them and get rid of them all.

 But... to do that I want to read them. I have both a 5.25 and a 3.5
 drive, both are plugged in, but in the BIOS, all I see is the 3.5.
 Fine, I figure I'll take care of those.

 Nope. I see /dev/fd0 once I've booted up, but neither konqueror nor
 mount nor fdisk works - the latter telling me that /dev/fd0 is not a
 valid block device. After some googling, I tried modprobe floppy, which
 installed it, but still no joy.

 Anyone have a clue?

 What file system is on them?  Or did you do something like raw tar
 writes to them?   If it is typical dos/window FAT, try the programs
 from the mtools package. mdir, mcopy, etc.   I hate to fight with
 stuff like that so I'd probably use a windows box connected to a samba
 share to move things over.

All of 'em are old DOS. Just tried mdir a:, and the same: can't open, 
can't initials A:. I really doubt the drives themselves are dead, but

mark


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Re: [CentOS] floppy drives

2013-04-07 Thread Frank Cox
On Sun, 07 Apr 2013 16:18:29 -0400
mark wrote:

 All of 'em are old DOS. Just tried mdir a:, and the same: can't open, 
 can't initials A:. I really doubt the drives themselves are dead, but

Floppy disks have a finite usable life.  Depending on where and how you have
been storing them, they may be shot.

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Re: [CentOS] floppy drives

2013-04-07 Thread mark
On 04/07/13 16:22, Frank Cox wrote:
 On Sun, 07 Apr 2013 16:18:29 -0400
 mark wrote:

 All of 'em are old DOS. Just tried mdir a:, and the same: can't open,
 can't initials A:. I really doubt the drives themselves are dead, but

 Floppy disks have a finite usable life.  Depending on where and how you have
 been storing them, they may be shot.

Yeah, but I tried three of 'em, three different OEM, and three ages, 
and they all give me fdisk saying it's not a valid block device.

Is it possibly that there's some driver missing?

mark

-- 
Necessity is the plea for every infringement of
human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is
the creed of slaves. William Pitt, 1783

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Re: [CentOS] floppy drives

2013-04-07 Thread Brian Miller
On Sun, 2013-04-07 at 16:43 -0400, mark wrote:
 On 04/07/13 16:22, Frank Cox wrote:
  Floppy disks have a finite usable life.  Depending on where and how you have
  been storing them, they may be shot.
 
 Yeah, but I tried three of 'em, three different OEM, and three ages, 
 and they all give me fdisk saying it's not a valid block device.

If they were all written with the same drive it's also possible the head
alignment had drifted which will make things...interesting.

Try formatting a scratch floppy to see if you can write.  If that works
but you still can't read, evidence that it's indeed an alignment
mismatch.

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Re: [CentOS] floppy drives

2013-04-07 Thread mark
On 04/07/13 17:11, Brian Miller wrote:
 On Sun, 2013-04-07 at 16:43 -0400, mark wrote:
 On 04/07/13 16:22, Frank Cox wrote:
 Floppy disks have a finite usable life.  Depending on where and how you have
 been storing them, they may be shot.

 Yeah, but I tried three of 'em, three different OEM, and three ages,
 and they all give me fdisk saying it's not a valid block device.

 If they were all written with the same drive it's also possible the head
 alignment had drifted which will make things...interesting.

 Try formatting a scratch floppy to see if you can write.  If that works
 but you still can't read, evidence that it's indeed an alignment
 mismatch.

These are many years of disks, written on many machines.

At any rate, I just tried mformat a:, and it tells me that it can't open 
/dev/fd0: No such device or address.

mark
-- 
Though I don't think (object-oriented programming) has much to offer 
good  programmers, except in certain specialized domains, it is 
irresistible to  large organizations. Object-oriented programming offers 
a sustainable way  to write spaghetti code.  - Paul Graham
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Re: [CentOS] floppy drives

2013-04-07 Thread Max Pyziur
On Sun, 7 Apr 2013, Frank Cox wrote:

 On Sun, 07 Apr 2013 17:29:14 -0400
 mark wrote:

 At any rate, I just tried mformat a:, and it tells me that it can't open
 /dev/fd0: No such device or address.

 ls -l /dev/fd?

 What do you see?


It's been years since I used floppies on a linux system; but when I still 
hada 3.5 inch drive, I recall that I first had to put a floppy in, then do 
a mount command.

I realize that the contributors on this thread, as well as the originator, 
may take this is a given, but in the event this hasn't been done, and it's 
a way to get the disk readable (I haven't seen it mentioned yet as 
possible solution).

My two cents,

MP
p...@brama.com
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Re: [CentOS] floppy drives

2013-04-07 Thread Frank Cox
On Sun, 7 Apr 2013 18:22:12 -0400 (EDT)
Max Pyziur wrote:

 I realize that the contributors on this thread, as well as the originator, 
 may take this is a given, but in the event this hasn't been done, and it's 
 a way to get the disk readable (I haven't seen it mentioned yet as 
 possible solution).

mtools doesn't require that the disk be mounted.

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Re: [CentOS] floppy drives

2013-04-07 Thread mark
On 04/07/13 17:49, Frank Cox wrote:
 On Sun, 07 Apr 2013 17:29:14 -0400
 mark wrote:

 At any rate, I just tried mformat a:, and it tells me that it can't open
 /dev/fd0: No such device or address.

 ls -l /dev/fd?

 What do you see?

lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 13 Apr  7 15:03 /dev/fd - /proc/self/fd/

And, while we're at it, ll of /dev/floppy shows

lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 3 Apr  7 15:03 /dev/floppy - fd0

mark
--  
Fascism is an extreme right-wing ideology which embraces nationalism,
xenophobia, militarism, and supremacist ideals. Though actually secular,
it emphasizes mythic beliefs such as divine mandates; and concentrates
power in the hands of an elite selected by, and often of, the wealthiest
groups of society, from whom all authority flows to lesser elites, such
as law enforcement, intellectuals, and the media.
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Re: [CentOS] floppy drives

2013-04-07 Thread John R. Dennison
On Sun, Apr 07, 2013 at 07:35:17PM -0400, mark wrote:
 
  ls -l /dev/fd?
 
  What do you see?
 
 lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 13 Apr  7 15:03 /dev/fd - /proc/self/fd/

Interesting as that doesn't match the pattern /dev/fd?

 And, while we're at it, ll of /dev/floppy shows
 
 lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 3 Apr  7 15:03 /dev/floppy - fd0

fd0 should have been shown by the ls -l /dev/fd? pattern so is that a
broken link?

lsmod | grep floppy - does it show the floppy module loaded?

If ls -l /dev/fd0* does not show a series of device nodes try:

/sbin/MAKEDEV fd0

and retry the operations that are failing.

If this still fails ensure that the device is enabled in the system's
bios.  Speaking of that, is the device seen at boot time?

dmesg | grep ^Floppy or grep ^Floppy /var/log/dmesg should show fd0
and a size.




John
-- 
Another age must be the judge.

-- Charles Babbage, realizing the technology did not exist to construct his
   difference engine, 1837; a full-size implementation exists at the Mountain
   View, CA Computer History Museum (CHM), where this quote is displayed.  The
   same can be said of the PLATO computer project, which was celebrated in the
   PLATO@50 conference at the CHM, 2-3 June 2010


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Re: [CentOS] floppy drives

2013-04-07 Thread Frank Cox
On Sun, 7 Apr 2013 18:53:54 -0500
John R. Dennison wrote:

  lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 13 Apr  7 15:03 /dev/fd - /proc/self/fd/
 
 Interesting as that doesn't match the pattern /dev/fd?

Note that /dev/fd has nothing to do with floppy drives.  /dev/fd deals with file
descriptors, not floppy drives. 

Just to avoid confusion.

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Re: [CentOS] floppy drives

2013-04-07 Thread mark
On 04/07/13 19:53, John R. Dennison wrote:
 On Sun, Apr 07, 2013 at 07:35:17PM -0400, mark wrote:

 ls -l /dev/fd?

 What do you see?

 lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 13 Apr  7 15:03 /dev/fd - /proc/self/fd/

 Interesting as that doesn't match the pattern /dev/fd?

 And, while we're at it, ll of /dev/floppy shows

 lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 3 Apr  7 15:03 /dev/floppy - fd0

 fd0 should have been shown by the ls -l /dev/fd? pattern so is that a
 broken link?

 lsmod | grep floppy - does it show the floppy module loaded?

 If ls -l /dev/fd0* does not show a series of device nodes try:

 /sbin/MAKEDEV fd0

 and retry the operations that are failing.

 If this still fails ensure that the device is enabled in the system's
 bios.  Speaking of that, is the device seen at boot time?

 dmesg | grep ^Floppy or grep ^Floppy /var/log/dmesg should show fd0
 and a size.

Ok, ll /dev/fd - which is a directory - shows it pointing to 
/proc/self/fd/. Under tghat is 0-3, where 0-2 are links to /dev/pts/0, 
*all* the same. 3 is a link to /proc/5038/fd/, which does not exist.

Is it time to try MAKEDEV?

mark

-- 
And yet less thanks have we than you. Users scowl at us, and reporters
give us scornful names. Geek I am to one fat man who lives a firewall
away from foes that would steal his identity or lay his little computer
in ruin, if it was not guarded ceaselessly. Yet we would not have it
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Re: [CentOS] floppy drives

2013-04-07 Thread mark
On 04/07/13 19:53, John R. Dennison wrote:
 On Sun, Apr 07, 2013 at 07:35:17PM -0400, mark wrote:

 ls -l /dev/fd?

 What do you see?

 lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 13 Apr  7 15:03 /dev/fd - /proc/self/fd/

 Interesting as that doesn't match the pattern /dev/fd?

 And, while we're at it, ll of /dev/floppy shows

 lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 3 Apr  7 15:03 /dev/floppy - fd0

 fd0 should have been shown by the ls -l /dev/fd? pattern so is that a
 broken link?

 lsmod | grep floppy - does it show the floppy module loaded?

 If ls -l /dev/fd0* does not show a series of device nodes try:

It does - /dev/fd0, along with all 14 sizes of floppies, of a patter 
/dev/fd0udisk capacity
snip
mark

-- 
And yet less thanks have we than you. Users scowl at us, and reporters
give us scornful names. Geek I am to one fat man who lives a firewall
away from foes that would steal his identity or lay his little computer
in ruin, if it was not guarded ceaselessly. Yet we would not have it
otherwise.  ---Aragorn, sysadmin.
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