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Formatting floppies is a major problem...

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  • Formatting floppies is a major problem...

    :confused: I am completely new to Linux and although I have been able to nut out most of what I need to do I cannot score with formatting. I am using Mandrake 9. The system is the exclusive owner of my primary hard drive. I have Xp on the slave and I use a HD docking unit to interchange with a second primary drive which contains ME and my dual boot. At this time I am content to use Linux exclusively and forget about XP.

    When I first boot into Linux I can use the K menu utility to format the floppies with no problems, I can even use the terminal to format them using a command line but the minute I access the floppy using the file manager to make a test directory or text file the format utility will no longer allow me to format the floppy. I get a message 'Device or Resource Busy'. Or tonight I got this one: 'Cannot create a filesystem on:/dev/fd0u1440mke2fs: Device or resource busy while trying to determine filesystem size'.

    Stumped I am... can anyone offer any suggestions?

  • #2
    Check the permissions on /dev/fd* and make sure your using the correct device.
    p-two.net

    Comment


    • #3
      Bern... these are the permissions listed for the directories.

      [ewen@localhost /]$ ls -l
      total 52
      -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 0 Nov 12 06:02 1
      drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Nov 12 05:27 bin/
      drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 Nov 17 02:24 boot/
      drwxr-xr-x 1 root root 0 Jan 1 1970 dev/
      drwxr-xr-x 56 root root 4096 Nov 17 02:23 etc/
      drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 Nov 12 05:33 home/
      drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Nov 12 07:04 initrd/
      drwxr-xr-x 8 root root 4096 Nov 12 05:21 lib/
      drwxr-xr-x 10 root root 4096 Nov 12 06:13 mnt/
      drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Aug 24 1999 opt/
      dr-xr-xr-x 82 root root 0 Nov 17 02:23 proc/
      drwx------ 10 root root 4096 Nov 17 02:19 root/
      drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Nov 12 05:22 sbin/
      drwxrwxrwt 28 root root 4096 Nov 17 02:28 tmp/
      drwxr-xr-x 12 root root 4096 Nov 12 06:09 usr/
      drwxr-xr-x 19 root root 4096 Nov 12 05:22 var/
      [ewen@localhost /]$

      When I type your command I get this:

      [ewen@localhost dev]$ ls -l fd*
      lr-xr-xr-x 1 root root 13 Nov 17 02:23 fd -> /proc/self/fd/
      lr-xr-xr-x 1 root root 8 Nov 17 02:23 fd0 -> floppy/0
      lr-xr-xr-x 1 root root 13 Nov 17 02:23 fd0u1040 -> floppy/0u1040
      lr-xr-xr-x 1 root root 13 Nov 17 02:23 fd0u1120 -> floppy/0u1120
      lr-xr-xr-x 1 root root 13 Nov 17 02:23 fd0u1440 -> floppy/0u1440
      lr-xr-xr-x 1 root root 13 Nov 17 02:23 fd0u1600 -> floppy/0u1600
      lr-xr-xr-x 1 root root 13 Nov 17 02:23 fd0u1680 -> floppy/0u1680
      lr-xr-xr-x 1 root root 13 Nov 17 02:23 fd0u1722 -> floppy/0u1722
      lr-xr-xr-x 1 root root 13 Nov 17 02:23 fd0u1743 -> floppy/0u1743
      lr-xr-xr-x 1 root root 13 Nov 17 02:23 fd0u1760 -> floppy/0u1760
      lr-xr-xr-x 1 root root 13 Nov 17 02:23 fd0u1840 -> floppy/0u1840
      lr-xr-xr-x 1 root root 13 Nov 17 02:23 fd0u1920 -> floppy/0u1920
      lr-xr-xr-x 1 root root 12 Nov 17 02:23 fd0u360 -> floppy/0u360
      lr-xr-xr-x 1 root root 12 Nov 17 02:23 fd0u720 -> floppy/0u720
      lr-xr-xr-x 1 root root 12 Nov 17 02:23 fd0u800 -> floppy/0u800
      lr-xr-xr-x 1 root root 12 Nov 17 02:23 fd0u820 -> floppy/0u820
      lr-xr-xr-x 1 root root 12 Nov 17 02:23 fd0u830 -> floppy/0u830
      [ewen@localhost dev]$

      So far it is all pretty meaningless and to make things worse I can no longer enter the floppy drive! When I click on it I get this requester:

      'Unable to enter file:/mnt/floppy You do not have access rights to this location'

      Now what? I tell you Windows is looking better by the minute.

      Comment


      • #4
        Do "chmod 666 /dev/fd*" and post your /etc/fstab for me to look at.
        p-two.net

        Comment


        • #5
          Here we go Bern:

          [ewen@localhost ewen]$ cd /etc
          [ewen@localhost etc]$ cat fstab
          /dev/hda1 / ext3 defaults 1 1
          none /dev/pts devpts mode=0620 0 0
          /dev/hda6 /home ext3 defaults 1 2
          none /mnt/cdrom supermount dev=/dev/hdc,fs=auto,ro,--,iocharset=iso8859-15,codepage=850,umask=0 0 0
          none /mnt/cdrom2 supermount dev=/dev/scd0,fs=auto,ro,--,iocharset=iso8859-15,codepage=850,umask=0 0 0
          none /mnt/floppy supermount dev=/dev/fd0,fs=auto,--,iocharset=iso8859-15,sync,codepage=850,umask=0 0 0
          none /mnt/floppy2 supermount dev=/dev/fd1,fs=auto,--,iocharset=iso8859-15,sync,codepage=850,umask=0 0 0
          /dev/hdb1 /mnt/win_c2 vfat iocharset=iso8859-15,codepage=850,umask=0 0 0
          /dev/hdb5 /mnt/win_d vfat iocharset=iso8859-15,codepage=850,umask=0 0 0
          /dev/hdb6 /mnt/win_e vfat iocharset=iso8859-15,codepage=850,umask=0 0 0
          none /proc proc defaults 0 0
          /dev/hda5 swap swap defaults 0 0
          [ewen@localhost etc]$

          Remember we are dealing with a rank amateur here. DOS is no problem but with this I don't understand the syntax and although I am using a version 7 Mandrake manual (hard copy) I get lost very easily and the explanations are not always that clear.

          I presume that the command you have given to me is typed in from the prompt in Konsole and I don't need to be root to do so!

          Regards

          Comment


          • #6
            You need to be root to chmod anything not in your home directory.
            p-two.net

            Comment

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