Very Computer

by **origin..** » Wed, 16 Jul 1997 04:00:00

Okay.. admittedly I have to buy a book..
Once a floppy is formatted.. does it have to have a file system put on it?
eg.. mkfs?
and once it's mounted, I can cp file to /mnt/floppy, but can't umount the
drive? Is there a way to write to the floppy what's in the /mnt/floppy dir ?

by **Alain Kna** » Wed, 16 Jul 1997 04:00:00

>Okay.. admittedly I have to buy a book..
>Once a floppy is formatted.. does it have to have a file system put on it?
>eg.. mkfs?

Not necessarily. You can also tar directly to the floppy:

tar cfvz /dev/fd0 <somedirectory>

And later

tar xfzv /dev/fd0

However, if you intend to mount the floppy, you need to put a
filesystem on it (mkfs.ext2 a.k.a. mke2fs for ext2, mkfs for minix,
mformat for Dos, etc).

>and once it's mounted, I can cp file to /mnt/floppy, but can't umount the
>drive?

Be sure you cd out of the mounted directory before attempting to
unmount the floppy. Also do not use this on the 2.1.44 kernel, it has
bugs w.r.t. to unmounting.

> Is there a way to write to the floppy what's in the /mnt/floppy dir ?

Yes, cp. You can also access the floppy without mounting it using
mtools (if it has a Dos fs on it).

Regards,

--
Linux - Why use Windows, since there is a door?

Alain

by **Bunn** » Thu, 17 Jul 1997 04:00:00

> Okay.. admittedly I have to buy a book..
> Once a floppy is formatted.. does it have to have a file system put
> on it? eg.. mkfs?

If formatted means those "preformatted" floppies, then you already have
an M$DOS FS on them. For others you have to "mkfs" one, if you need one.

Quote:> and once it's mounted, I can cp file to /mnt/floppy, but can't
> umount the drive? Is there a way to write to the floppy what's
> in the /mnt/floppy dir ?

You can unmount the device as soon as it is no longer referenced by any
open files or by any "active" directories (directories with someone
cd'ed to).

Regards,
Bunny
--
----------------------------------------

----------------------------------------

by **Zdravko Balor** » Sat, 19 Jul 1997 04:00:00

: >
: > Okay.. admittedly I have to buy a book..
: > Once a floppy is formatted.. does it have to have a file system put
: > on it? eg.. mkfs?

: > and once it's mounted, I can cp file to /mnt/floppy, but can't
: > umount the drive? Is there a way to write to the floppy what's
: > in the /mnt/floppy dir ?

My advice would be to avoid having file system on a floppy. Use
tar only.

by **Karen Simmon** » Tue, 22 Jul 1997 04:00:00

Quote:
> Okay.. admittedly I have to buy a book..

Using Linux by Matt Welsh - O'Reilly & Associates
It's a good book for beginners -- trust me, I know. 8^)

Quote:> Once a floppy is formatted.. does it have to have a file system put on
it?
> eg.. mkfs?

for instance, for VFAT....

mkfs -t vfat /dev/fd0

if /dev/fd0 is indeed the floppy device you're working with.

Quote:> and once it's mounted, I can cp file to /mnt/floppy, but can't umount the
> drive? Is there a way to write to the floppy what's in the /mnt/floppy
dir ?

sync ; umount /mnt/floppy :-)

/mnt/floppy is the *mount point* for the floppy. After you mount the
floppy using the mount command, anything written/read from /mnt/floppy is
written/read to/from the floppy. (this totally discounts the fact that
there is a read/write cache.)

Hope this helps.

Very Computer

floppy again

floppy again

floppy again

floppy again

floppy again

floppy again