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I am running Ubuntu 14.04 64 bit.

When I plug in my USB floppy drive Ubuntu tries to automount the drive and I get the same error message if there is a disk in the drive or not. The USB Floppy drive works on another laptop that is running Windows 7.

"Error mounting /dev/sdb at /media/dave/disk: Command-line `mount -t "auto" -o "uhelper=udisks2,nodev,nosuid" "/dev/sdb" "/media/dave/disk"' exited with non-zero exit status 32: mount: no medium found on /dev/sdb"

I am not sure how to go about troubleshooting this one.

--Dave

David Brooks
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    It looks like a good guide, but I am having problems with the steps in it. The floppy module is not loaded and I cant load it. See Error below: lsmod | grep -i floppy sudo modprobe -v floppy insmod /lib/modules/3.13.0-29-generic/kernel/drivers/block/floppy.ko modprobe: ERROR: could not insert 'floppy': No such device – David Brooks Jun 17 '14 at 17:46
  • From what I can see, it should be a standard part of Ubuntu. Can you examine the directory /etc/modprobe.d and check to see if there is a file blacklist-floppy? You should also look in the file /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist, if it exists – Charles Green Jun 17 '14 at 18:43
  • There are no blacklist-floppy and no blacklist files. – David Brooks Jun 17 '14 at 18:52
  • There may be some help in this post http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=907130, but we have exhausted my knowledge. Sorry – Charles Green Jun 17 '14 at 18:59
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    The floppy driver comes with the Linux kernel package. You must have it. Do modprobe floppy and then dmesg|tail - to find the file do locate floppy.ko – bain Jun 19 '14 at 10:12

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I think the answer maybe Mtools.

Mtools allow you to access MS-DOS formatted floppy disks without having to mount them in Linux. If these tools are not already installed in your system then you can install them using your package manager.

So, the first step is to see if you already have the mtools package installed. From a terminal type: mtools and press enter. If mtools is installed, you should see a list of commands all starting with the letter m. If you get an error then you will need to install the package.

In Debian based systems you can install mtools by typing: #apt-get install mtools and then enter your password. In RPM based distributions you can type: #yum install mtools and then enter.

Note: In the above commands, # signifies the root user. You can either log in as root or use the sudo command in Ubuntu and the su -c 'command' in other distros.

Now insert one of your floppy disks that you want to access.

Note: You will need to use a terminal from this point forward.

Now depending on your system, begin the commands with either sudo or su -c ', as you need root privileges to use mtools.

For example, to view the contents of the floppy disk, use the mdir command by typing: sudo mdir a: then press enter. You should now hear the floppy drive read the disk and show the contents.

If you have any directories there, you can access them by using the mcd command. (mcd basically does the same as the cd command in Linux. It changes the current directory to a different one. ) EG: mcd a:/pictures If you want to copy files from the floppy to your home directory you can do so by using the mcopy command.

Here are some examples: Copy one file to the photos directory in your home folder. mcopy a:/photo22 /home/user/photos/ Copy all files on the root directory of the floppy drive to the photos directory. mcopy a:/* /home/user/photos/ Copy the pictures directory from the floppy drive to your home folder. mcopy -s a:/pictures /home/user/ Copy all files and directories from the floppy to the backup folder in your home directory. mcopy -s a:/* /home/user/backup/

Remember to use sudo or su -c'command' when issuing these commands.

myklmar
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  • mtools is available in the Ubuntu libraries, and in the Ubuntu Software Center – Charles Green Jun 17 '14 at 20:05
  • I'm on Lubuntu 14.04 LTS and I can say that I just ran this command to extract some old floppy backups without needing to use sudo or su: for X in Disk??.img; do mcopy -s -n -i "$X" ::* . ; done – ssokolow Oct 16 '17 at 08:06