Floppy Drives

ubermensch00 · 2010-08-05 00:21:03

Hello everyone,

I've recently setup a floppy drive under Arch with xfce4.
The drive will mount, and I can browse it, however when I attempt to manipulate the files on the floppy in any way it says the drive is set to only readable. Is there a group my user needs to be made a part of or anything I need to do to be able to gain read/write abilities to the floppy drive?

Thank guys.

ubermensch00 · 2010-08-05 00:25:03

`/media/floppy': Read-only file system

This is what I recieve when I attempt to delete or add files.

ablepharus · 2010-08-05 00:25:31

There is the group floppy. Is it mounted the right way?

ablepharus · 2010-08-05 00:26:08

ubermensch00 wrote:

`/media/floppy': Read-only file system
This is what I recieve when I attempt to delete or add files.

Seems like it's mounted as ro.

ubermensch00 · 2010-08-05 00:27:39

ablepharus wrote:

There is the group floppy. Is it mounted the right way?

So I'm guessing I just add myself to the group then?

eirika · 2010-08-05 00:28:00

See if you can write as root, if there is a readonly option in the mount options,
and if the write protect switch on your floppy disk is in effect.

There is a group called floppy, if you can write as root probably
this group is what you are looking for.

Whoa! As I was writing this 4 other posts came out

Last edited by eirika (2010-08-05 00:29:03)

ubermensch00 · 2010-08-05 00:29:54

[james@xion ~]$ sudo gpasswd -a james floppy
Adding user james to group floppy
[james@xion ~]$ groups
network video audio optical storage power users vboxusers

Apparantly it didn't add me to the group O.o

ubermensch00 · 2010-08-05 00:30:39

eirika wrote:

See if you can write as root, if there is a readonly option in the mount options,
and if the write protect switch on your floppy disk is in effect.
There is a group called floppy, if you can write as root probably
this group is what you are looking for.
Whoa! As I was writing this 4 other posts came out

I did try as root. And it gave me the same result.

ubermensch00 · 2010-08-05 00:34:09

$ sudo mount /dev/fd0 /media/floppy
mount: block device /dev/fd0 is write-protected, mounting read-only

This is what happened when I unmounts and tried to remount it in the same location.

eirika · 2010-08-05 00:41:26

As I said there is usually a sliding write protection tab on a floppy
disk, is it in effect?

ubermensch00 · 2010-08-05 00:45:44

eirika wrote:

As I said there is usually a sliding write protection tab on a floppy
disk, is it in effect?

Well it was actually, lol. I didn't even think about that. However I'm still getting the same result. It's mounting it as read only.

ubermensch00 · 2010-08-05 00:49:28

$ sudo mount /dev/fd0 /media/floppy
mount: block device /dev/fd0 is write-protected, mounting read-only

When I forced a umount and a mount again, this is what I recieved. It mounts it fine, I can access it fine, but I still can't make or delete files on it, as my user or as root.

ablepharus · 2010-08-05 00:54:28

You have to relogin to get the change applied (adding to group).

mount /dev/fd0 -o rw

ubermensch00 · 2010-08-05 00:55:07

Strange, I guess it was something specific to that floppy that was preventing it. I placed in a different floppy and I seem to be allowed to write to it using sudo...
Maybe there is an old protection on it I forgot about. Thanks anyway

eirika · 2010-08-05 00:55:58

What is the file system type of the previous floppy disk? Maybe
a file system problem?

Last edited by eirika (2010-08-05 00:56:29)

ablepharus · 2010-08-05 00:58:56

Did dmesg give any output?

ubermensch00 · 2010-08-05 01:03:19

ablepharus wrote:

You have to relogin to get the change applied (adding to group).

Yeah you were right, I forgot about that. I'm a part of the group now, and the other floppy I'm using is working 100% fine now. I don't know whats wrong with the other floppy disk I guess it's just a bad disk.

JGC · 2010-08-08 21:39:52

You don't need to be member of any group to mount or write floppies. The floppy group is the group that owns the raw floppy device, so only if you want to dd stuff straight to /dev/fd0 as regular user you have to be member of that group.
As for mounting them readonly, check this:
http://helpdesk.ua.edu/help/howto/writeprotect.html
Probably your diskette was write protected.

Arch Linux

#1 2010-08-05 00:21:03

Floppy Drives

#2 2010-08-05 00:25:03

Re: Floppy Drives

#3 2010-08-05 00:25:31

Re: Floppy Drives

#4 2010-08-05 00:26:08

Re: Floppy Drives

#5 2010-08-05 00:27:39

Re: Floppy Drives

#6 2010-08-05 00:28:00

Re: Floppy Drives

#7 2010-08-05 00:29:54

Re: Floppy Drives

#8 2010-08-05 00:30:39

Re: Floppy Drives

#9 2010-08-05 00:34:09

Re: Floppy Drives

#10 2010-08-05 00:41:26

Re: Floppy Drives

#11 2010-08-05 00:45:44

Re: Floppy Drives

#12 2010-08-05 00:49:28

Re: Floppy Drives

#13 2010-08-05 00:54:28

Re: Floppy Drives

#14 2010-08-05 00:55:07

Re: Floppy Drives

#15 2010-08-05 00:55:58

Re: Floppy Drives

#16 2010-08-05 00:58:56

Re: Floppy Drives

#17 2010-08-05 01:03:19

Re: Floppy Drives

#18 2010-08-08 21:39:52

Re: Floppy Drives

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