[ale] Linux and Old Floppy Drives

Discussion:

Ted W.

2017-11-16 13:37:09 UTC

Has anyone here recently worked with 5.25" floppy drives under a modern
Linux kernel? I have a need to rescue some data off old floppies for my
mother that were found in storage. I have a computer with on-board
floppy controller, a 5.25" drive connected to it and Ubuntu 16.04.3
installed. I can see that the system recognizes that there is a floppy
drive on the machine as /dev/fd0 exists and is reported in `dmesg`.
However, when I try to access a disk inserted in to the drive I am
greeted with an "invalid block device" message. Thinking that perhaps
the floppy I was trying to read was damaged, I tried another disk; same
issue. I have a package of unused, "brand new" in appearance and
packaging, 5.25" blank floppy disks. I tried one of those. It too
reports "invalid block device". I tried to format it, same error.

Upon further inspection, I noticed that `dmesg` incorrectly reports this
as a 1.44MB floppy disk, not the 1.2MB (max) I would expect it to say.
This leads me to believe that the floppy kernel module is recognizing
that there is a floppy device connected but is unable to determine what
type it is and is falling back to some defaults of some kind(?). I've
thought of trying something from the BSDs, maybe NetBSD since they tend
to be more compatible with older hardware.

Anyone have experience with something like this? Pointers? Thoughts?
Suggestions?

Thanks,
Ted

Boris Borisov

2017-11-16 13:47:06 UTC

Permalink

Try live puppy linux. There are some flavors of it with kernel build for
ancient hardware.

Ver. 4.3.1 is good example.

Post by Ted W.
Has anyone here recently worked with 5.25" floppy drives under a modern
Linux kernel? I have a need to rescue some data off old floppies for my
mother that were found in storage. I have a computer with on-board
floppy controller, a 5.25" drive connected to it and Ubuntu 16.04.3
installed. I can see that the system recognizes that there is a floppy
drive on the machine as /dev/fd0 exists and is reported in `dmesg`.
However, when I try to access a disk inserted in to the drive I am
greeted with an "invalid block device" message. Thinking that perhaps
the floppy I was trying to read was damaged, I tried another disk; same
issue. I have a package of unused, "brand new" in appearance and
packaging, 5.25" blank floppy disks. I tried one of those. It too
reports "invalid block device". I tried to format it, same error.
Upon further inspection, I noticed that `dmesg` incorrectly reports this
as a 1.44MB floppy disk, not the 1.2MB (max) I would expect it to say.
This leads me to believe that the floppy kernel module is recognizing
that there is a floppy device connected but is unable to determine what
type it is and is falling back to some defaults of some kind(?). I've
thought of trying something from the BSDs, maybe NetBSD since they tend
to be more compatible with older hardware.
Anyone have experience with something like this? Pointers? Thoughts?
Suggestions?
Thanks,
Ted
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Jeff Hubbs

2017-11-16 14:06:01 UTC

Permalink

The 4.12.12 kernel still has the floppy driver and there isn't some
separate config setting for 5.25" drives - I'd suspect bad drive or bad
cable. I feel like if dmesg is showing the driver and the driver reports
that /dev/fd0 exists, there's not much else that can be wrong but those
two parts.

Post by Boris Borisov
Try live puppy linux. There are some flavors of it with kernel build
for ancient hardware.
Ver. 4.3.1 is good example.
Has anyone here recently worked with 5.25" floppy drives under a modern
Linux kernel? I have a need to rescue some data off old floppies for my
mother that were found in storage. I have a computer with on-board
floppy controller, a 5.25" drive connected to it and Ubuntu 16.04.3
installed. I can see that the system recognizes that there is a floppy
drive on the machine as /dev/fd0 exists and is reported in `dmesg`.
However, when I try to access a disk inserted in to the drive I am
greeted with an "invalid block device" message. Thinking that perhaps
the floppy I was trying to read was damaged, I tried another disk; same
issue. I have a package of unused, "brand new" in appearance and
packaging, 5.25" blank floppy disks. I tried one of those. It too
reports "invalid block device". I tried to format it, same error.
Upon further inspection, I noticed that `dmesg` incorrectly reports this
as a 1.44MB floppy disk, not the 1.2MB (max) I would expect it to say.
This leads me to believe that the floppy kernel module is recognizing
that there is a floppy device connected but is unable to determine what
type it is and is falling back to some defaults of some kind(?). I've
thought of trying something from the BSDs, maybe NetBSD since they tend
to be more compatible with older hardware.
Anyone have experience with something like this? Pointers? Thoughts?
Suggestions?
Thanks,
Ted
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Ed Cashin

2017-11-16 14:28:21 UTC

Permalink

You've probably already thought of this, but my thought is: Practice on
floppies you don't care about.

Also, it might be best to copy the bytes at a low level (e.g., with dd)
instead of jumping right to mounting the filesystem on it. If you can get
the bytes off, you can try all you want to mount the resulting disk image
without worrying about old hardware or degraded magnetic impressions. You
could even use a VM running older software to mount the disk image.

--
Ed Cashin <***@noserose.net>

Lightner, Jeffrey

2017-11-16 14:58:31 UTC

Permalink

These folks apparently make a USB to Floppy connector and mention Linux. Even better the page has an update in 2017 suggesting they are still around:
http://www.deviceside.com/

Havenât used it myself.

Somewhere I have an old PC with 5.25â and 3.5â floppy drive combo as well as dozens of old floppies. That had Windows (3.1 maybe) rather than Linux.

One thought that occurred to me: Are you using anything else in this system like a small tape drive? There was an old tape drive that I was installing on 486 systems back in the 90s and it used the same DMA channel as floppies even though it was a separate controller. As I recall I could have either one floppy and one tape drive or two floppies owing to that.

From: Ale [mailto:ale-***@ale.org] On Behalf Of Ed Cashin
Sent: Thursday, November 16, 2017 9:28 AM
To: Atlanta Linux Enthusiasts
Subject: Re: [ale] Linux and Old Floppy Drives

You've probably already thought of this, but my thought is: Practice on floppies you don't care about.

Also, it might be best to copy the bytes at a low level (e.g., with dd) instead of jumping right to mounting the filesystem on it. If you can get the bytes off, you can try all you want to mount the resulting disk image without worrying about old hardware or degraded magnetic impressions. You could even use a VM running older software to mount the disk image.

On Thu, Nov 16, 2017 at 8:37 AM, Ted W. <ted-***@xy0.org<mailto:ted-***@xy0.org>> wrote:
Has anyone here recently worked with 5.25" floppy drives under a modern
Linux kernel? I have a need to rescue some data off old floppies for my
mother that were found in storage. I have a computer with on-board
floppy controller, a 5.25" drive connected to it and Ubuntu 16.04.3
installed. I can see that the system recognizes that there is a floppy
drive on the machine as /dev/fd0 exists and is reported in `dmesg`.
However, when I try to access a disk inserted in to the drive I am
greeted with an "invalid block device" message. Thinking that perhaps
the floppy I was trying to read was damaged, I tried another disk; same
issue. I have a package of unused, "brand new" in appearance and
packaging, 5.25" blank floppy disks. I tried one of those. It too
reports "invalid block device". I tried to format it, same error.

Upon further inspection, I noticed that `dmesg` incorrectly reports this
as a 1.44MB floppy disk, not the 1.2MB (max) I would expect it to say.
This leads me to believe that the floppy kernel module is recognizing
that there is a floppy device connected but is unable to determine what
type it is and is falling back to some defaults of some kind(?). I've
thought of trying something from the BSDs, maybe NetBSD since they tend
to be more compatible with older hardware.

Anyone have experience with something like this? Pointers? Thoughts?
Suggestions?

Thanks,
Ted

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--
Ed Cashin <***@noserose.net<mailto:***@noserose.net>>

Ted W.

2017-11-17 01:14:53 UTC

Permalink

Hey Ed,

I'm definitely trying to do this on a blank floppy that I don't care
about first. I had not thought to use dd to copy the disk bit for bit,
though. That's a great idea! Once I can get one of the blank floppies
working I'll be sure to do this first as a safety precaution.

Post by Ed Cashin
You've probably already thought of this, but my thought is: Practice on
floppies you don't care about.
Also, it might be best to copy the bytes at a low level (e.g., with dd)
instead of jumping right to mounting the filesystem on it. If you can get
the bytes off, you can try all you want to mount the resulting disk image
without worrying about old hardware or degraded magnetic impressions. You
could even use a VM running older software to mount the disk image.

--
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Calvin Harrigan

2017-11-17 07:27:51 UTC

Permalink

Might seem obvious, but have you verified that the drive is properly
configured in the bios?

Ted W.

2017-11-19 15:44:05 UTC

Permalink

Post by Calvin Harrigan

Might seem obvious, but have you verified that the drive is properly
configured in the bios?

So, the BIOS has two options. Diskette on or Diskette off. Upon further
inspection, this seems to be the issue. My friend's computer has an
option to select the floppy size in his BIOS and after plugging it in
there it still did not work with the proper size selected. This lead us
to think that the drive itself is bad. We have access to a handful of
other 5.25" drives and now that we have a computer we know can recognize
the drive properly we'll try them and see if any of them work.

Post by Calvin Harrigan
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Boris Borisov

2017-11-19 18:53:55 UTC

Permalink

Freedos has live CD. Try to read the floppy with it to determine if there
is hardware problem or missing settings.

Rule out one by one.

Post by Ted W.

Post by Calvin Harrigan

Might seem obvious, but have you verified that the drive is properly
configured in the bios?

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