Am Freitag, 17. Februar 2017, 17:33:02 schrieb Jonathan Riddell:
> I'm in the disk user group. I'm using KDE neon which is Ubuntu 16.04
> as base. The drive is external and attached by USB.
>
> fdformat doesn't work from the command line
>
> >fdformat --no-verify /dev/sdc
>
> fdformat: could not determine current format type: Invalid argument
Another reply already suggested that the USB controller doesn't give the
necessary control.
And fdformat's man page only mentions /dev/fd* devices too.
I probably should disable or hide that option in case of other devices than
fd0/1 or try to find a different tool to use.
Currently, there will be a (hopefully) comprehensible error dialog if you
enter a custom device though.
I have to admit I don't know if a low-level format would be possible or
necessary in such a case.
For "normal" floppy drives this is important though.
> Then again neither does mkfs.vfat
>
> >mkfs.vfat /dev/sdc
>
> mkfs.fat 3.0.28 (2015-05-16)
> mkfs.vfat: Device partition expected, not making filesystem on entire device
> '/dev/sdc' (use -I to override)
>
> When using kfloppy, even with /dev/sdc specified in the top text box, it
> says mkdosfs exited with an error
>
> Running this
>
> >mkdosfs /dev/sdc -I
>
> does correctly format the disk
Hm.
On my openSUSE system, mkdosfs and mkfs.vfat are just symlinks to mkfs.fat.
So I would expect all of them to work, or not.
But the difference is probably the '-I' option, adding this would of course be
simple...
For the record, this is what the man page says:
-I It is typical for fixed disk devices to be partitioned so, by
default, you are not permitted to create a filesystem across the
entire device. mkfs.fat will complain and tell you that it
refuses to work. This is different when using MO disks. One
doesn't always need partitions on MO disks. The filesystem can go
directly to the whole disk. Under other OSes this is known as the
'superfloppy' format. This switch will force mkfs.fat to work
properly.
Shouldn't do any harm to use it even for "normal" floppy drives, I think.
> It should be ported to Solid at the least, having hard coded /dev entries is
> a bit last millenium.
Yes, that's the plan now.
Kind Regards,
Wolfgang
