From owner-freebsd-questions Sun Dec 14 19:12:09 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id TAA12020 for questions-outgoing; Sun, 14 Dec 1997 19:12:09 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-questions) Received: from emerald.accessv.com (emerald.accessv.com [206.221.248.8]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id TAA12015 for ; Sun, 14 Dec 1997 19:12:03 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from root@accessv.com) Received: from Sammy (port080-87.accessv.com [209.50.87.80]) by emerald.accessv.com (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id WAA15248; Sun, 14 Dec 1997 22:11:15 -0500 Date: Sun, 14 Dec 1997 17:11:05 -0500 (EST) From: Geoffrey Robinson X-Sender: root@Sammy To: Greg Lehey cc: grobin@accessv.com, questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Accessing Floppy Drive In-Reply-To: <19971215091243.56481@lemis.com> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk I don't have much of a need to use disketts right now but sooner or later I will and if I don't find out how to do it now it could come back to haunt me. Anyway, I was sucessful with putting a file system on the floppy and mounting it. Is this the only was to interact with a floppy the same way you do in MS-DOS? Otherwise tar seems like the best idea for simple storage. --- Geoffrey Robinson grobin@accessv.com Oakville, Ontario, Canada. On Mon, 15 Dec 1997, Greg Lehey wrote: > On Sun, Dec 14, 1997 at 03:50:07PM -0500, Geoffrey Robinson wrote: > > This is a rather basic question but I'm new to UNIX so you'll have > > to excuse me. I can't seem to figure out how to mount, or otherwise > > access a UNIX formatted floppy. > > Why do you want to do this? > > > When I needed to transfer a file from FreeBSD to Windows I found out > > how to mount an MS-DOS formatted floppy but when I try using mount > > to mount a UNIX formatted floppy (formatted with fdformat) in fd0 I > > get an error message about an incorrect super block. What do I do? > > You already have the simple answer from somebody else. But he didn't > tell you that this will waste nearly half the capacity of the floppy. > Normally, it's not a good idea to put file systems on floppy. You > can't use them to exchange data with other (non-BSD) UNIX systems, > either, since the format differs from one UNIX system to another. If > you want to use the floppy for backup or transfer purposes, tar is > better, and it doesn't require a file system. To copy files to the > floppy, enter: > > # tar cvf /dev/rfd0 > > To extract them into the current directory or in a subdirectory of the > current directory, enter: > > # tar xvf /dev/rfc0 > > If you omit the when extracting, it will extract > everything for you. > > Greg