Configuring a Floppy Drive for use in Slackware 7.1 on a Thinkpad
365E
After installing the A and N series disk sets of Slackware 7.1, I was unable to
use the floppy drive until I did this:
As root, cd to /mnt.
Next, mkdir floppy.
Next cd to /etc.
Use a text editor to very carefully add this line to fstab:
/dev/fd0 /mnt/floppy auto noauto,users 0 0
This allows all users to access the floppy drive.
Example fstab before modification:
/dev/hda1 swap swap defaults 0 0
/dev/hda2 / ext2 defaults 1 1
/dev/hda5 /home ext2 defaults 1 2
none /dev/pts devpts gid=5,mode=620 0 0
none /proc proc defaults 0 0
Example fstab after modification:
/dev/hda1 swap swap defaults 0 0
/dev/hda2 / ext2 defaults 1 1
/dev/hda5 /home ext2 defaults 1 2
/dev/fd0 /mnt/floppy auto noauto,users 0 0
none /dev/pts devpts gid=5,mode=620 0 0
none /proc proc defaults 0 0
Unfortunately when I copied files to the floppy, their names changed.
i.e. PaperThree-November.txt looked like paperthr.txt.
To fix this, in the fstab I changed:
/dev/fd0 /mnt/floppy auto noauto,users 0 0
to
/dev/fd0 /mnt/floppy vfat noauto,users 0 0
sources:
http://www.linuxheadquarters.com/howto/basic/floppy.shtml
Jim Miller, November 2001.
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