floppy drive in fedora core 3

[Bengthansson]

Dear forum members,
I have connected an internal floppy drive unit to my motherboard. I do not know how to access the floppy drive in Fedora core 3. The instructions for fedora core 2 are not applicable. The system do not seem to detect the floppy drive. The motherboard is an ASRock K7S41GX .

Regards,

Bengt Hansson
benjamin@ludd.luth.se

[daneel971]

Did you replace an old floppy drive or didn't you have one before?
What exactly are the instruction for fc2 that don't work on fc3?
This is a stupid question, I know, but: did you check all the cables of the floppy? data and power, I mean...

[tashirosgt]

What were the instructions for FC2? If you installed mtools, put a diskette in the floppy and try:
mdir a:
and see what the error message is. Also do
dmesg | grep fd0
and see if the floppy was detected during boot-up.
Is this the only floppy on the machine? Is there another device like a LS-120 superfloppy also? Does the floppy show up in the motherboard's BIOS setup?

[Bengthansson]

Originally Posted by daneel971

Did you replace an old floppy drive or didn't you have one before?
What exactly are the instruction for fc2 that don't work on fc3?
This is a stupid question, I know, but: did you check all the cables of the floppy? data and power, I mean...

Hello daneel971,
Thanks for your answer.
This is a new sngle internal unit and there was no other unit before . The instruction for fc2 were that fedora 2 look for stored data in the floppy disc at /mnt/floppy. I have opened "mnt" but but it contains no data, no floppy. There are a lot of files containing the letters floppy but I do not know how to use these. Thank you for the cable question: I have place the red stripe towards pin 1 in the FDD connector on the motherboard according to instruction for the K7S41GX and on the floppy unit I have placed the red stripe in the connector the same way as in the motherboard connector.

Regards,

Bengt

[Bengthansson]

Originally Posted by tashirosgt

What were the instructions for FC2? If you installed mtools, put a diskette in the floppy and try:
mdir a:
and see what the error message is. Also do
dmesg | grep fd0
and see if the floppy was detected during boot-up.
Is this the only floppy on the machine? Is there another device like a LS-120 superfloppy also? Does the floppy show up in the motherboard's BIOS setup?

Hello tashirosgt,
The instruction for fc2 were that fedora 2 look for stored data in the floppy disc at /mnt/floppy. I do not know in which menu I was supposed to use the information /mnt/floppy. Cable: I forgot to say that I connected the only plug that fitted into the power connector on the floppy unit (just above the internal cable ribbon connector with four pins). the message for "mdir a" is "Can't open /dev/fd0: No such file or directory Cannot initialize 'A:'". It is the only floppy on the machine and it was not replacing another. I did "dmesg | grep fd0" and got message but only a new prompt. I will restart the computer and check the bios set up utility.

Regards,

Bengt

[tashirosgt]

On all motherboards that I have see, the floppy will show up in the BIOS setup. Also you must make sure the floppy controller is enabled. After the floppy shows up in the BIOS, it may requre some further configuration before the information on a disk automatically shows up in /mnt/floppy.

[Bengthansson]

I tried to get into the BIOS set up by pressing the <F2> during the Power-On-Sef-Test as they instruct but it did not work. Is there another way to reach this utility? I do not now how to enable the floppy controller and what configuration is needed.
Bengt

[Bengthansson]

Originally Posted by tashirosgt

On all motherboards that I have see, the floppy will show up in the BIOS setup. Also you must make sure the floppy controller is enabled. After the floppy shows up in the BIOS, it may requre some further configuration before the information on a disk automatically shows up in /mnt/floppy.

Hello tashirosgt,
I got into the Bios Setup now. I have chosen 144MB in the dropdown menu. I am not clear about what you allude to with Floppy controller, I have enabled the all features for the Floppy in the Bios setup. Still, the hard drive browser in fc3 does not detect any Floppy drives.

[tashirosgt]

There is often a BIOS selection for the PCI devices or "integrated peripherals" which has an enabled-disabled setting for the floppy controller. From a terminal window, run
hal-device-manager
and see if that display shows the floppy.

[Bengthansson]

Originally Posted by tashirosgt

There is often a BIOS selection for the PCI devices or "integrated peripherals" which has an enabled-disabled setting for the floppy controller. From a terminal window, run
hal-device-manager
and see if that display shows the floppy.

Hello tashirosgt,
I have now done following changes to the BIOS setup utility: 1) under "Main_Floppy Drives", Ihave set; "Floppy Drive A" to144 MB 3 1/2; "Floppy Drive B" to 144 MB 3 1/2; "Floppy Drive Swap" to Enabled; "Floppy Drive Seek" to Enabled. 2) under "Advanced_Peripheral Configuration", I have set "OnBoard FDC" (FloppyDriveController) to Enabled. 3) under "Power", I have set "PC1 Devices Power On" to Enabled. 4) under "Boot_Boot Device Priority", I have set "Floppy(s) 144 MB 3 1/2".
When I boot there is green indicator light during an interval and a sound from the floppy during the POST, showing contact with the motherboard. During Networking there is a green indicator light from the floppy during an interval as well, showing contact with fd3.
When I try the Hardware Browser under Floppy Disks, there is a 3.5" 1.44 MB floppy drive detected with Manufacturer: unknown. Driver: unknown. Device: /dev/fd1.
In Terminal, when I try "mdir a" I get: init: set default params Cannot initialize 'A:' . "dmesg | grep fd0" gives: Floppy drive(s): fd0 is 1.44M, fd1 is 1.44M
end_request: I/O error, dev fd0, sector 0.
"dmesg | grep fd1" gives: Floppy drive(s): fd0 is 1.44M, fd1 is 1.44M.
When I try to open from the file "/dev/fd1", I have tried several applications by which the floppy gives sound but nothing opens (the floppy disks I have, are not formatted in this fc3 but I mean I have used them under both windows and unix systems). With one "open with" application, "a2ps" the floppy makes sound for a longer duration like if "a2ps" works with the disk but it does not open.

Regards,

Bengt

[tashirosgt]

From those results, I think that your floppys are being detected by Fedora. A simple problem that I experience is with computer cases where there is an ornamental faceplate on the floppy that is fairly deep. Often, I have to shove the floppy in rather hard to get it to seat. If I don't get it seated, I get those "Cannot initialize 'A'" messages. But this can also happen with a bad floppy. A floppy that you can view in Windows will probably work in Fedora using the mtools commands, like mdir.

One distinction between Fc2 and Fc3 is that, by default, things like floppies are mounted in /media rather than /mnt.
Check that your FC3 has a directory called /mnt/floppy
If, not create it, as root, by doing
mkdir /media/floppy (That's "mkdir", not "mdir)
Then put a floppy in drive "A" and try
mount /dev/fd0 /media/floppy -t vfat
To see if it got mounted do
cat /etc/mtab
If it was mounted you should be able to do
ls /media/floppy
and see what is on the floppy.

[Bengthansson]

Originally Posted by tashirosgt

From those results, I think that your floppys are being detected by Fedora. A simple problem that I experience is with computer cases where there is an ornamental faceplate on the floppy that is fairly deep. Often, I have to shove the floppy in rather hard to get it to seat. If I don't get it seated, I get those "Cannot initialize 'A'" messages. But this can also happen with a bad floppy. A floppy that you can view in Windows will probably work in Fedora using the mtools commands, like mdir.

One distinction between Fc2 and Fc3 is that, by default, things like floppies are mounted in /media rather than /mnt.
Check that your FC3 has a directory called /mnt/floppy
If, not create it, as root, by doing
mkdir /media/floppy (That's "mkdir", not "mdir)
Then put a floppy in drive "A" and try
mount /dev/fd0 /media/floppy -t vfat
To see if it got mounted do
cat /etc/mtab
If it was mounted you should be able to do
ls /media/floppy
and see what is on the floppy.

Hello tashirosgt,
I have checked your suggestions. There is no directory /mnt/floppy but only an /mnt. Trying to create floppy with "mkdir /media/floppy" gives: "mkdir: cannot create directory `/media/floppy': Permission denied". I do not know how to arrive at this permission.
"mdir a" still gives:
"init: set default params
Cannot initialize 'A:'"
when I shove the disc firmly into the unit.
Regards
bengthansson

[tashirosgt]

To check permissions on /media do
ls -l -d /media
and look at the letters like drwxr-xr-x that preceed the directory name.
On a normally configured machine, you must be logged-in as root to have permission to mkdir /media./floppy
On my machine the result of ls -l -d /media it looks like:
drwxr-xr-x 7 root root 4096 Aug 6 07:24 /media

[Bengthansson]

Originally Posted by tashirosgt

To check permissions on /media do
ls -l -d /media
and look at the letters like drwxr-xr-x that preceed the directory name.
On a normally configured machine, you must be logged-in as root to have permission to mkdir /media./floppy
On my machine the result of ls -l -d /media it looks like:
drwxr-xr-x 7 root root 4096 Aug 6 07:24 /media

Hello tashirosgt,
I did: "on /media do"
"ls -l -d /media" and got an answer similar to your suggestion: "drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 Aug 6 17:14 /media" but still the command "mkdir /media/floppy" gives
"mkdir: cannot create directory `/media/floppy': Permission denied" and this is the same when I have the log-KEYS on the panels. I do not get a special dialog where I can log in as root.

Regards,

benhansson

[tashirosgt]

I've never used log-KEYS, whatever they are. Right click at an empty place on the desktop and select "open terminal". Then
do
su -
(don't forget the minus sign after "su" )
Are you prompted for the root password?