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Old 1st May 2008
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robbak robbak is offline
Real Name: Robert Backhaus
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Join Date: May 2008
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Default You mount the floppy disk this way.

I have decided to move this post across from bsdforums. Thankfully, floppy disks are getting less common (and not before time!!), but some poor luser is sure to end up stuck with them.


[Instructions for FreeBSD]
The floppy device is known as /dev/fd0 for the first (and generally only) floppy drive.
The command to use to make it available is mount. mount can do a lot of things, so it's man page is complex. Read it - some other time.
To use an msdos floppy disk, do this.
1. Gain root privileges. Either log in as root, use sudo (if you have that installed) or use the su command
$ su
password: << type in the root password

2. create a folder to use to access the drive. It can be anywhere.
# mkdir /floppy

3. mount the disk with this command
# mount -t msdosfs /dev/fd0 /floppy

Note that, in NetBSD and OpenBSD, the command would be
# mount -t msdos /dev/fd0a /floppy


Now you will find the entire disks contents available under the /floppy directory.
MOST IMPORTANT - after you have finished using it, you must unmount it. use the command

# umount /floppy

Note that there us no `n' in umount. This must be done because the system may not write the data to the disk until you do this. You can end up with 0-length files if you don't.

PS. the $ and # at the start of the lines represents the prompt. the $ refers to the ordinary user prompt, and # represents the superuser or root prompt. Do not type them in.
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Last edited by robbak; 2nd May 2008 at 12:13 PM. Reason: Removed FIXME remark. oicat confirmed Open/Net syntax
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