USB floppy and BSD

[skippy]

Hello, I have been using several versions of linux for the past decade, usually competent but not an expert. Recently my motherboard died. After "careful" selection I installed a new one. Then I realized that I bought one without a FDD interface! I need to transfer files to an old 486 machine (DOS 6.22) on 3-1/2 disks. So I bought a USB floppy (Sabrent/Mitsumi SBT-UFDB). After weeks of struggle cannot get Ubuntu to recognize and mount it. My question, how does OpenBSD fare with a USB FDD? Also open to suggestions on other versions of BSD or linux. Willing to get some other make/model of USB floppy if that will help.

Thanks for any advice.

[ocicat]

Originally Posted by skippy

...how does OpenBSD fare with a USB FDD?

Welcome!

I have a USB floppy drive for accessing old 3.5-inch disks, but in full disclosure, I am not locating it at the moment, & I haven't used it for a number of releases of OpenBSD.

Nevertheless, mounting a floppy disk is similar to mounting a CD using a USB CD-R drive:

1. Plug in the USB floppy drive. On the root console will be displayed what device is identified with the drive. For the purpose of this example, assume this is /dev/sd0.
2. Insert the floppy into the drive.
3. I assume that your floppy disk are formatted as MS-DOS. In any event, use disklabel(8) to determine what partitions are present on the floppy disk with the following command:
   
   $ sudo disklabel sd0
   
   I also assume sudo(8) has been correctly configured.
   
   For the sake of discussion, assume that the MS-DOS partition is "i" which is typical for foreign file systems.
   
   If no partition appears with the expected file system, it may not be formatted. In this case, format the disk with newfs(8) as described in Section 14.4 of the official FAQ.
4. Mount the floppy using the following command:
   
   $ sudo mount -t msdos /dev/sd0i /mnt
   
   /mnt is the typical directory for mounting temporary file systems. See hier(7) for more information as well as mount(8) which gives an example of mounting floppy disks.
5. At this point, access to the disk has been established. Copying from the drive can be done by any user, but writing will be restricted to root unless you have previously changed permissions on the device node. Again, sudo(8) is your friend.
6. Before removing the disk, be sure to properly unmount the drive to ensure that all writes to the disk have been flushed:
   
   $ sudo umount /mnt

As a newcomer to OpenBSD, taking the time to study the project's official FAQ will save you significant time & aggravation. This document is the sole best source for information on the latest release of OpenBSD.

Enjoy!

[bsd-keith]

My old Linux system (Debian based) used to mount a usb floppy drive on /dev/fd0, (but it had to have a disk in it).