/dev/fd0 is not a valid block device

[Rick Stevens]

Matt Morgan wrote:
> This is probably dumb. When I installed Fedora I did not have a floppy 
> drive installed. I just added one, and kudzu (or something) seems to 
> have noticed it, although any changes it made, it made silently. But I 
> see, for example, that my /etc/fstab was modified about 30 minutes ago, 
> and the last line in it is
> 
> /dev/fd0                /mnt/floppy             auto    
> noauto,owner,kudzu 0 0
> 
> besides that, if I run hwbrowser, I have a 3.5" 1.44 Mb floppy listed.
> 
> But, if I try to mount it, I get "/dev/fd0 is not a valid black device" 
> and if I try fdformat /dev/fd0, I get "/dev/fd0: no such device or 
> address".

If I recall correctly, fdformat wants the more elaborate /dev/fd0H1440
so it can determine how to format the floppy.  I don't recall if
/dev/fd0 is permitted.

> FYI, I'm logged in as root trying these things, just to be sure.  Oddly, 
> I notice that the listing for /dev/fd0 looks like
> 
> brw-rw----  1 morganm floppy 2, 0 Sep 15  2003 /dev/fd0
> 
> (Or maybe that's normal--but why is morganm, my regular user account, 
> the owner of /dev/fd0? In any case, changing ownership to root doesn't 
> help).

If you're logged into the GUI as your mortal self, that's who will own
removable media (check /dev/cdrom, etc.).

> It's possible this is a bad floppy drive, and I suppose it's possible I 
> plugged in the cable backwards ... but all of these errors happen before 
> it even gets to the point of trying to read the floppy, so it seems like 
> something else is broken.

If the floppy's LED is lit all the time, yes, the cable is backwards.
That's not fatal, just flip the cable over and it'll be OK.  If the
cable is right, when you try the mount does the floppy's select LED
light up (e.g. is the system even trying to hit it)?
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- Rick Stevens, Senior Systems Engineer     rstevens at vitalstream.com -
- VitalStream, Inc.                       http://www.vitalstream.com -
-                                                                    -
-     Veni, Vidi, VISA:  I came, I saw, I did a little shopping.     -
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