# [Solved] Mounting Floppy Silently Fails

## John R. Graham

Ever seen anything like this?

```
IPSN-JOHNGRAH2 ~ $ mkfs.vfat /dev/fd0

mkfs.vfat 3.0.9 (31 Jan 2010)

IPSN-JOHNGRAH2 ~ $ mount /mnt/floppy

IPSN-JOHNGRAH2 ~ $ mount | grep floppy

IPSN-JOHNGRAH2 ~ $ umount /mnt/floppy/

umount: /mnt/floppy is not mounted (according to mtab)

IPSN-JOHNGRAH2 ~ $ expand -t4 /etc/fstab | grep floppy

/dev/fd0                /mnt/floppy     auto        noauto,user,noexec,shortname=lower  0 0

IPSN-JOHNGRAH2 ~ $ uname -r

2.6.38-reiser4-r6

IPSN-JOHNGRAH2 ~ $ ls -d /dev/fd*

/dev/fd        /dev/fd0u1120  /dev/fd0u1680  /dev/fd0u1760  /dev/fd0u360  /dev/fd0u820

/dev/fd0       /dev/fd0u1440  /dev/fd0u1722  /dev/fd0u1840  /dev/fd0u720  /dev/fd0u830

/dev/fd0u1040  /dev/fd0u1600  /dev/fd0u1743  /dev/fd0u1920  /dev/fd0u800

IPSN-JOHNGRAH2 ~ $ 
```

There's no error message to sink my teeth into. An older kernel I have lying around (2.6.27) behaves normally.

- John

----------

## Aquous

 *Quote:*   

> IPSN-JOHNGRAH2 ~ $ mount /mnt/floppy

 Shouldn't that be

```
mount /dev/fd0 /mnt/floppy
```

?

----------

## tomk

 *Aquous wrote:*   

>  *Quote:*   IPSN-JOHNGRAH2 ~ $ mount /mnt/floppy Shouldn't that be
> 
> ```
> mount /dev/fd0 /mnt/floppy
> ```
> ...

 If it's listed in your fstab you only have to specify the device or mountpoint and mount knows what to do.

----------

## disi

 *tomk wrote:*   

>  *Aquous wrote:*    *Quote:*   IPSN-JOHNGRAH2 ~ $ mount /mnt/floppy Shouldn't that be
> 
> ```
> mount /dev/fd0 /mnt/floppy
> ```
> ...

 

never seen that...

What defaults does the other kernel use? cat /proc/mounts | grep floppy

once the floppy is mounted?

----------

## John R. Graham

Well, the /etc/fstab is the same, 'cause the root filesystem is the same. I'll check & report back.

- John

----------

## dwbowyer

Anecdotal: Several weeks ago while using floppies on a pentium 3, I had a very similar issue. I found that if I edited /etc/fstab to:

```

/dev/fd0u1440                /mnt/floppy     auto            noauto,users                0 0

```

It would mount the floppies. For some reason mount just couldn't guess the format size. After an update ( for baselayout2 and openrc),

the above stopped working. I haven't test with /dev/fd0, since I hardly ever use the floppy drive.

I hope that might point you in right direction.

----------

## John R. Graham

 *dwbowyer wrote:*   

> 
> 
> ```
> /dev/fd0u1440                /mnt/floppy     auto            noauto,users                0 0 
> ```
> ...

 That actually worked. I thought I had tried that before but I apparently had not. Thanks.   :Smile: 

- John

----------

## Gokhan

It looks like I am having this problem with the mounting of the floppy silently failing if I start the KDE environment. My floppy cannot mount after I start KDE (it silently fails), even after I log out of KDE back into the shell.

I tried the rw option under options in /etc/fstab but it didn't seem to help either:

```
/dev/fd0    /mnt/floppy    auto    noauto,user,rw    0    0
```

Note that mounting the floppy works in the shell until I start KDE. It will not work again even after I log out of KDE (will silently fail), until I reboot the system.

Any ideas?

----------

## Fitzcarraldo

```
$ uname -a

Linux gateway9300 3.2.1-gentoo-r2 #8 SMP Tue Apr 10 22:14:05 BST 2012 i686 Pentium III (Coppermine) GenuineIntel GNU/Linux
```

My machine's internal floppy drive isn't mounting either. Entry in /etc/fstab look OK:

```
/dev/fd0      /mnt/floppy   auto      rw,noauto,user,sync   0 0
```

The device is definitely present, and I'm in the floppy group:

```
$ ls /dev/fd*

/dev/fd0

/dev/fd:

0  1  2  3

$ ls -la /dev/fd0

brw-rw---- 1 root floppy 2, 0 Apr 11 08:23 /dev/fd0

$ groups

lp wheel floppy cron audio cdrom video cdrw usb users portage
```

When I try to mount the floppy it does not mount correctly:

```
$ umount /dev/fd0

umount: /dev/fd0 is not mounted (according to mtab)

$ mount /mnt/floppy/

$ ls /mnt/floppy/

$ cp ~/test_file_1.txt /mnt/floppy/

cp: cannot create regular file `/mnt/floppy/test_file_1.txt': Permission denied

$ su

Password: 

# cp ./test_file_1.txt /mnt/floppy/

# ls /mnt/floppy/

test_file_1.txt

# umount /dev/fd0

umount: /dev/fd0: not mounted

# exit

exit

$ ls /mnt/floppy/

test_file_1.txt

$ cp ~/test_file_2.txt /mnt/floppy

cp: cannot create regular file `/mnt/floppy/test_file_2.txt': Permission denied

$
```

Yet udisks command mounts the floppy without any trouble:

```
$ udisks --mount /dev/fd0

Mounted /org/freedesktop/UDisks/devices/fd0 at /mnt/floppy

$ cp ~/test_file_2.txt /mnt/floppy

$ ls /mnt/floppy/

test_file_2.txt

$ rm /mnt/floppy/*

$ ls /mnt/floppy/

$ udisks --unmount /dev/fd0

$ ls /mnt/floppy/

test_file_1.txt

$
```

----------

## Fitzcarraldo

Thought it best to make a new post, rather than edit my previous post, in case posters here had already read my previous one.

Apparently this is a known bug in udisks: see freedesktop.org Bugzilla Bug 30283 - regression: udisks-daemon keeps forcibly unmounting floppies and Ubuntu Bugzilla Bug Report No. 441835.

As per Comment #344 in that Ubuntu bug report, I edited the following section in /lib/udev/rules.d/80-udisks.rules and replaced the "1" with "0", then rebooted:

```
##############################################################################################################

# PC floppy drives

#

KERNEL=="fd*", ENV{ID_DRIVE_FLOPPY}="1"

# USB floppy drives

#

SUBSYSTEMS=="usb", ATTRS{bInterfaceClass}=="08", ATTRS{bInterfaceSubClass}=="04", ENV{ID_DRIVE_FLOPPY}="1"

# ATA Zip drives

#

ENV{ID_VENDOR}=="*IOMEGA*", ENV{ID_MODEL}=="*ZIP*", ENV{ID_DRIVE_FLOPPY_ZIP}="1"

##############################################################################################################
```

It didn't solve the problem in my case, so, as a work-around, I have created two desktop configuration files with floppy disk icons on my Desktop: one named Mount_floppy to run the command udisks --mount /dev/fd0 and the other named Unmount_floppy to run the command udisks --unmount /dev/fd0. That is better than nothing but it is frustrating that this bug has been left unfixed for two years. OK, the 720/1440 KB floppy drive has been obsolete for several years now, but there must still be in use quite a few legacy machines with internal floppy drives, especially in back offices.

----------

