Cannot Write to Floppy - But Can Read

[cedric9]

I recently installed Ubuntu 14.04 LTS on my old Pentium 4, and I've run into
some trouble using my floppy drive. (I'm one small step above newbie.)

At first I could not use my floppy drive at all, and the indicator light would
stay on constantly whenever I tried to mount. Eventually I got it working well
enough that the light no longer stays on, and I can now read the contents of my
floppies, but I cannot write to them. (Although I can format them in Ubuntu.)

Here is a quick recap of everything I've done to get to this point:
================================================== ===========================
* Add the following line to /etc/modules
"floppy" (Without quotes)
================================================== ===========================
* Comment out the following lines within /etc/fstab
#/dev/fd0 /mnt/fd0 auto nosuid,nodev,nofail,noauto,x-gvfs-show 0 0
#/dev/fd0 /media/floppy0 auto rw,user,noauto,exec,utf8 0 0
(I added the above lines while experimenting, but both commented out now.)
(All other lines left the same)
================================================== ===========================
* Added all users to Floppy group
================================================== ============================
* Installed fdutils Version 5.5-20060227-6 - via Muon Package Manager
(Verified with "apt-cache show fdutils" command)
================================================== ==============================
* Installed udisks Version 1.0.5-1
(I also have udisks2 Version 2.1.3-1 - Will this cause a problem?)
================================================== ==============================
* Changed the "1" to "0" in the following lines within the floppy section of
/lib/udev/rules.d/80-udisks.rules (Example below)

KERNEL=="fd*", ENV{ID_DRIVE_FLOPPY}="0"
ATTRS{bInterfaceSubClass}=="04", ENV{ID_DRIVE_FLOPPY}="0"
ENV{ID_VENDOR}=="*IOMEGA*", ENV{ID_MODEL}=="*ZIP*", ENV{ID_DRIVE_FLOPPY_ZIP}="0"
(All other lines left the same.)
================================================== ==============================
* Added the following command to /etc/rc.local
"floppycontrol -C 2147483647"
(without quotes)
================================================== ==============================

I'm wondering if my problem could be due to the lines I commented out within
/etc/fstab? Also, I read somewhere that someone had solved a problem similar
to mine by changing the line within /etc/fstab to read as below:
"/dev/fd0u1440/media/floppy0 auto rw,noauto,user,exec 0 0"
However, I don't know if this will solve my problem?

Also, is the package listed as "udisks2 Version 2.1.3-1" a duplicate of udisks
Version 1.0.5-1, and is this causing a problem?

[SeijiSensei]

Insert the floppy in the drive, then run the "mount" command. Is it marked read/write?

You didn't happen to flip the read-only switch on the physical floppy itself, did you?

[Yellow Pasque]

Is your user in the 'floppy' group?

Other tips here, though they are for Ubuntu 12.04 and Ubuntu 14.04 might have some different elements (like udisks2): http://askubuntu.com/questions/168597/how-do-i-use-a-floppy-drive-in-ubuntu

[cedric9]

Insert the floppy in the drive, then run the "mount" command. Is it marked read/write?

You didn't happen to flip the read-only switch on the physical floppy itself, did you?

Hello SeijiSensei, When I enter the mount command, I do not receive any error messages stating that it is mounting in read only mode. If my floppy was being mounted in read only mode, would I see an error message say it was read only?

Is there another command I can use to determine if the floppy is being mounted in read only mode? Sorry, I'm still a bit of a newbie.
(I can see the contents of my floppy within /media/floppy0)

Also, the read only switch on the floppy is in closed position.

[cedric9]

Hello Juan, yes, I added all of my users to the floppy group. Hmm...I will take a look at the above link when I get home.

[SeijiSensei]

Hello SeijiSensei, When I enter the mount command, I do not receive any error messages stating that it is mounting in read only mode. If my floppy was being mounted in read only mode, would I see an error message say it was read only?

No, but you should see an "rw" entry in the list of options being used. Here, for instance, is the entry for a hard drive partition on this machine:

/dev/sda1 on /boot type ext2 (rw)
You should see "rw" at the end of the floppy entry. If it reads "ro" it is read-only.

[cedric9]

I got it to work! I added the below line to my /etc/fstab and now I can read and write to my floppies.

/dev/fd0 /media/floppy0 auto rw,user,noauto,exec,umask=0,utf8 0 0

Not sure how or why it is now working, but I found the above line in a similar thread to mine.

[Marc_Hendry]

(0) Make sure the floppy kernel module is loaded

lsmod | grep floppy

If this is not the case, edit /etc/modules and add a line that contains

floppy


(1) Create a folder to mount the floppy to:

mkdir /media/floppy

You'll only have to do this, if the folder doesn't exist yet. Choose a name (and location) of your desire. The desktop environment will adapt to this automatically.


(2) Change ownership and permissions

chgrp floppy /media/floppy
chmod 750 /media/floppy

That way, only users in group "floppy" can access this directory. Also, if no floppy is mounted, there are no write permissions to this location, therefore nobody can accidentally drop data in here. Users that are not members of the floppy group can't read or write here at all.


(3) Add the following line to /etc/fstab

/dev/fd0 /media/floppy auto rw,user,noauto,exec,gid=floppy,umask=007 0 0

Now every user can mount a floppy to /media/floppy. After mounting the floppy, the group of /media/floppy will still be "floppy" (it would be "root" if the gid option was omitted). Also, members of group "floppy" will now be able to write to this directory, while everyone else still has no read or write permissions (if everyone else should have read permissions, umask must be set to 002).


This is basically cedric9's soloution, just featuring more detailed read and write permissions. Using this configuration, only members of the floppy group can read or write floppy disks, while still being able to enforce restrictions to all others. You may want to consider this if your PC is a multi unser environment.