UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

Thanks for the reply.

I tried that command

Code:

dd if=/dev/fd0 of=/dev/null

with fd0 and fd1. Both times I got the message

Code:

cannot open /dev/fd0: no such device or address

If I tried using /dev/fd, it said it something like
0+1 Sent
0+1 Received
, but there was no light flashing on the drive.

The light never did flash on the drive at all, but I am 100% confident that the floppy drive works.
Any Thoughts?

Looks like there may be hardware problem, daisy cable issue, master/slave issue. Also to check in the BIOS how it has been configured.It should not be disabled. Then in the kernel devices, does it detect any device while boot up, that may give some clue. Try booting of the floppy drive , the drive should sense if you change the boot sequence to FDD. These are few steps may be helpful diagnosing the Floppy Drive problem.

I don't think it is a hardware problem. The BIOS settings all look good, and I can boot the computer with a DOS Diskette and read and write to and from the disk.

How exactly would I check this? (Sorry, I'm fairly new to Unix)

---------- Post updated at 04:00 PM ---------- Previous update was at 08:47 AM ----------

Thanks for all the help, guys.

I finally determined the the floppy disk is

Code:

/dev/dsk/f0

But If I try

Code:

mount -F ufs /dev/dsk/f0

The floppy makes noises, so it is accessing the right drive. but i get the message

Code:

f0 is not an ufs file system

When I try to format the disk with ufs file system

Code:

format  /dev/dsk/f0
format  /dev/dsdk/f03h

I get the message

Code:

Device must be a character device

Thanks for the help. How can i format the Disk?

Is there a boot record /usr/adm/messages? In some this is a cumlative history of devices found during boot and you could do a tail of the file to see if it is recognizing the floppy during boot. Or maybe a tail -50 to see all of the last boot. Use more to see the entire file.

On some, if the floppy was disabled during OS load it might require a md floppy to create the /dev/fd0 and link it into the kernel.

Also the possibility that the drive is empty or the diskette is not a unix filesystem. You are trying to mount a file system and if it is not the right kind it will give you the error.

You may have fdformat available to see if it tries to format a blank diskette.

BrentBANKS,
so far looks good,
You dont have any filesystem in the floppy disk yet, so it complains about filesystem , You should be able to mount it after formatting the disk with correct format.
>>Device must be a character device.
- To Use : format -F ufs /dev/rdsk/f0 , instead of /dev/dsk .

Unfortunately, I have a different version of format. ( there was a typo in my last post under format, I will fix it)

Code:

format [-f first] [-l last] [-i interleave] [-v] [-V] [-E] NOTES: -E implies -V

I formatted with

Code:

format /dev/rdsk/f0

It seemed to format just fine, but i still cant mount it.

I do have a make file system tool, mkfs.

Code:

mkfs -F ufs /dev/rdsk/f0
mkfs -F ufs /dev/rdsk/f03h

If i run either of those commands, i just end up with this prompt

Code:

ufs usage: mkfs [-F FSType] [-V] [-m] [-o options] special size [nsect ntrak bsize fragsize cgsize free rps nbpi opt apc gap]

I've read about tools like floppy, fdformat, rmformat, but UNIX Sys V is old enough that it doesn't have any of those. I think mkfs is the way to go. (I read about newfs, but i dont have it either).
Thanks for your help.

---------- Post updated at 08:01 PM ---------- Previous update was at 07:26 PM ----------

I take that back. I can mount it using the -F fdfs option.

Code:

mount -F fdfs /dev/dsk/f0 /mnt

It shows the drive the drive is mounted. This is the contents of the /mnt directory.

Code:

0 10 12 14 16 18 2 21 23 4 6 8
1 11 13 15 17 19 20 22 3 5 7 9

Is this correct, will i be able to copy files to and from, or should i try and format the drive as UFS?

You haven't said which version of Unix you are using. There is SCO, Interactive, ATand T.
If the diskette has a tar file on it, it does not have a file system, and cannot be mounted, it can however be read using tar.
You may need to specify the exact diskette type and size.
#tar xvf /dev/fd0
#tar xvf /dev/rfd0135ds18 for a 3.5 inch high density floppy on drive A.
If you are using SCO there is a file called /etc/default/tar which has a list of the various media types. so you can substitute a number for the media type"
#tar xv6 (where 6 relates to the paired values in the above file.)
You may have a command called 'dtype'
#dtype /dev/fd0
Will display the diskette formatting.
The possible results are dos, unix 1k file system, tar, cpio
If dos
#mount -f dos /dev/fd0 /mnt
If 1k
#mount /dev/fd0 /mnt
Although you seem to have tried this one and had it not work.