Mark Grieveson wrote: >> >> Thanks, that seems to help. Perhaps having it on "auto" sets up a > >> Catch-22, wherein a floppy that needs to be formatted cannot be due >> to > the requirement of the program having to determine the file >> system first > (which requires that it be formatted). Or maybe not. >> Anyway, I've had > better luck with floppies after making your >> suggested change; so, thanks > again. > > When the file system type for /dev/fd0 was set at "auto", the > computer would frequently complain, when I had an unmountable disk, > that it could not determine the file system type. Subsequent efforts > to format, and/or fix the disk via superformat, failed. Changing the > file type line of "/dev/fd0" in /etc/fstab from "auto" to "vfat" left > the machine with no question as to what the file system type of the > disk was; hence, I believe, it overcame that hurdle to identify other > errors (bad block, etc), and, more often than before, I was able to > format and make the disk usable.
That's nuts! I made this change also, and now superformat worked without complaining, and the one floppy I've tried (which previously I could not format to save my life) seems to be working fine. Even though I was telling some of the utilities I was trying to use what filesystem/size to use, they'd fail. Then this simple little change works (or at least seems to, with my very limited test sample). Those utilities *should* have worked; decreases my respect for Debian just ever so slightly. -- Kent West Westing Peacefully <http://kentwest.blogspot.com> -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]