I can not access my USB floppy drive

which version of ubuntu are you uisng?

Hi Marcus
I have version 11.10.

Rex and Jackie
"Do but despise reason and science the highest of man's powers and thou art mine for sure" from the Devil in Faust by Goethe

> To: <email address hidden>
> From: <email address hidden>
> Subject: Re: [Question #183466]: I can not access my USB floppy drive
> Date: Sun, 1 Jan 2012 23:45:50 +0000
>
> Your question #183466 on software-center in Ubuntu changed:
> https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/software-center/+question/183466
>
> Status: Open => Needs information
>
> marcus aurelius requested more information:
> which version of ubuntu are you uisng?
>
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Can you give the output of:

sudo fdisk -l; mount; uname -a; lsb_release -a

Thanks

Does floppy appear in /media ?
Run command:
   sudo lsusb
Do you see it in results ?

Here is the output of the sudo fdisk -l; mount etc. command
gerald@gerald-desktop:~$ sudo fdisk -l; mount; uname -a; lsb_release -a
[sudo] password for gerald:

Disk /dev/sda: 500.1 GB, 500107862016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 60801 cylinders, total 976773168 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xc06dc06d

   Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 63 976751999 488375968+ 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT

Disk /dev/sdb: 500.1 GB, 500107862016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 60801 cylinders, total 976773168 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x97be5b6a

   Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 2048 2828287 1413120 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sdb2 * 2828288 615236495 306204104 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sdb3 615237630 976773119 180767745 5 Extended
/dev/sdb5 615237632 962023423 173392896 83 Linux
/dev/sdb6 962025472 976773119 7373824 82 Linux swap / Solaris

Disk /dev/sdi: 1 MB, 1474560 bytes
1 heads, 3 sectors/track, 960 cylinders, total 2880 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x0009fd3b

   Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb5 on / type ext4 (rw,errors=remount-ro,commit=0)
proc on /proc type proc (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)
sysfs on /sys type sysfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)
fusectl on /sys/fs/fuse/connections type fusectl (rw)
none on /sys/kernel/debug type debugfs (rw)
none on /sys/kernel/security type securityfs (rw)
udev on /dev type devtmpfs (rw,mode=0755)
devpts on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,noexec,nosuid,gid=5,mode=0620)
tmpfs on /run type tmpfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,size=10%,mode=0755)
none on /run/lock type tmpfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev,size=5242880)
none on /run/shm type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,nodev)
binfmt_misc on /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc type binfmt_misc (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)
rpc_pipefs on /var/lib/nfs/rpc_pipefs type rpc_pipefs (rw)
nfsd on /proc/fs/nfsd type nfsd (rw)
gvfs-fuse-daemon on /home/gerald/.gvfs type fuse.gvfs-fuse-daemon (rw,nosuid,nodev,user=gerald)
/dev/sdb1 on /media/System Reserved type fuseblk (rw,nosuid,nodev,allow_other,blksize=4096,default_permissions)
/dev/sda1 on /media/Old c 500G type fuseblk (rw,nosuid,nodev,allow_other,blksize=4096,default_permissions)
/dev/sdb2 on /media/3ED028B8D02877F3 type fuseblk (rw,nosuid,nodev,allow_other,blksize=4096,default_permissions)
Linux gerald-desktop 3.0.0-14-generic-pae #23-Ubuntu SMP Mon Nov 21 22:07:10 UTC 2011 i686 athlon i386 GNU/Linux
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description: Ubuntu 11.10
Release: 11.10
Codename: oneiric
gerald@gerald-desktop:~$

Yes it does show up as: Bus 001 Device 012: ID 03ee:6901 Mitsumi SmartDisk FDD

Disk /dev/sdi: 1 MB, 1474560 bytes
1 heads, 3 sectors/track, 960 cylinders, total 2880 sectors

Seems to be your floppy disk, which is recognized as mass memory storage.
Does floppy appear in /media ?
Could you paste content of file /etc/fstab ? It could be a conflict between mount and udev.

Hi Marcus
Here is the /etc/fstab printout:
gerald@gerald-desktop:/etc$ cat fstab
# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# Use 'blkid -o value -s UUID' to print the universally unique identifier
# for a device; this may be used with UUID= as a more robust way to name
# devices that works even if disks are added and removed. See fstab(5).
#
# <file system> <mount point> <type> <options> <dump> <pass>
proc /proc proc nodev,noexec,nosuid 0 0
# / was on /dev/sdb5 during installation
UUID=fc1fc4ea-adc9-4e6e-a0b3-4d04d47091d4 / ext4 errors=remount-ro 0 1
# swap was on /dev/sdb6 during installation
UUID=e23770c5-1ef7-4d5e-b6e0-1761f99de23f none swap sw 0 0
/dev/sdg /media/floppy0 auto rw,user,noauto,exec,utf8 0 0
gerald@gerald-desktop:/etc$

As I have no floppy, I can't test.
Could you:
add a "#" at start of line "/dev/sdg /media/floppy0 auto rw,user,noauto,exec,utf8 0 0"
reboot
check if floppy is detected when you insert into the driver

Hi Marcus
I used gedit to attempt to add the # sign, but I was not able to save the file. It told me it could not make a copy of the file and asked me if I wanted to save it any way. When I clicked on save any way button nothing happened and the only way I could make a change was to click on the do not save button. I have changed to read write permission on the fstab file, but it did not help. I do not know how to proceed.

This solved my immediate problem (changing the file to comment out a statement), but when I did that I still could not access the media in the floppy disk drive. The floppy drive is recognised and I was able to reformat a floppy, but I can not read or write a floppy. Do you have any other suggestions?
Thanks
Rex

If you manually mount it, is it ok?

You could use palimpsest to manually mount the floppy.

Hi Marcus,

I&#39;d like to add you to my professional network on LinkedIn.

- Gerald

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