/dev/fd0 is not a valid block device

[Rick Stevens]

Jeff Vian wrote:
> 
> 
> James Kosin wrote:
> 
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>> Rick Stevens wrote:
>> <<-- snip -->>
>>
>> If you use fdformat to format the floppy in Linux, you still need to use
>> mkfs to build a file system on the floppy.  Otherwise, you will still
>> get this error, even after the format.
>>
>> /dev/fd0 is only permitted if fdformat knows the format already or can
>> find it out from the floppy.
>>
>> You can use mount /mnt/floppy to try again.  Or better still, get a disk
>> you know is good... and try mounting that.
>>
> If you use "/sbin/mkdosfs /dev/fd0" it will format the floppy as a dos 
> filesystem and check the lowlevel format at the same time. Use of 
> "/bin/fdformat" does the lowlevel format only and from the man page it 
> does require the use of "/dev/fd0H1440" or equivalent in order to know 
> how to do that format.
> 
> However, if that disk has been used for some things (like making a linux 
> boot disk) it cannot be reformatted using mkdosfs and would have to be 
> reformatted with fdformat first.
> 
> Bottom line -  to do the low level format use fdformat,   -- to make the 
> usable format use mkdosfs.

"mformat a:" will also do a vfat format of a floppy.
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- Rick Stevens, Senior Systems Engineer     rstevens at vitalstream.com -
- VitalStream, Inc.                       http://www.vitalstream.com -
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-           Blech!  ACKth!  Ooop!  -- Bill the Cat (Outland)         -
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