how to use a floppy as storage with tinycore

[ejames82]

hi everybody,

i thought i would give a floppy disk a try yesterday, i wanted to see if i could put files on and remove files.  i made no headway at all.

i tried this command:

mount /dev/fd0 /mnt/fd0
invalid arguement

i tried diligently to find any info in the documentation, but came up empty handed.
there's lots of stuff about booting to a floppy, but that's not what i want.
any help would be greatly appreciated as always.

[gerald_clark]

does /dev/fd0 have a filesystem on it?
Floppies are EXTREMELY slow and unreliable.

[ejames82]

hello gerald_clark,

i was able to use the floppy tool to format the diskette that was in it.  then i tried everything my newbie self could think of.  i even tried the mount tool but the button for fd0 would not turn green. 
i suppose i should have tried a second floppy diskette, but i didn't even thing i was on the right track.  i was just 'winging it' hoping for the best.

should what i tried, have worked?

[ejames82]

is this the proper command?

mount /dev/fd0 /mnt/fd0
 
and is this, or any command required?

sorry for the double-post.

[gerald_clark]

After you format the floppy, you need to create a filesystem on it using mkfs.
Once the filesystem is created, it can be mounted.

[ejames82]

i knew there was something i didn't know.

this is good news.  thanks again gerald_clark.

[ejames82]

this is what i have tried.  still no luck using the floppy (the drive itself could be defective, but i am assuming that it works, for now).

tc@box:~$ sudo su
root@box:~# fdformat /dev/fd0H1440
Double-sided, 80 tracks, 18 sec/track. Total capacity 1440 kB
Formatting... done
Verifying... done
root@box:~# mkfs -t vfat -c /dev/fd0H1440
sh: mkfs: not found
root@box:~#

is this the proper command to make a fat32 file system on it?

mkfs -t vfat -c /dev/fd0H1440

thanks.

[gerald_clark]

Did you install dosfstools-3.tcz ?

[Lee]

Did you try the dosfstools-3 extension?  It provides the several variations of mkfs and some other goodies.

usr/local/sbin/dosfsck
usr/local/sbin/dosfslabel
usr/local/sbin/fatattr
usr/local/sbin/fsck.msdos
usr/local/sbin/fsck.vfat
usr/local/sbin/mkdosfs
usr/local/sbin/mkfs.msdos
usr/local/sbin/mkfs.vfat

[ejames82]

i'll do it right away.
i'll let you know how it goes.
thanks, gentlemen.

[ejames82]

tc@box:~$ sudo su
root@box:~# fdformat /dev/fd0H1440
Double-sided, 80 tracks, 18 sec/track. Total capacity 1440 kB
Formatting... done
Verifying... done
root@box:~# mkfs -t vfat -c /dev/fd0H1440
sh: mkfs: not found
root@box:~# mkfs -t vfat -c /dev/fd0H1440
sh: mkfs: not found
root@box:~#

still no luck. 
if you have any more advice, i will gladly take it.  though it hasn't worked so far, i still find this very interesting.
i will check the apps audit and the update utility in the meantime.  maybe it's something right under my nose.
thanks.   

[gerald_clark]

It is mkfs.vfat

[ejames82]

ok, i'll try it.  thanks gerald_clark.

[ejames82]

tc@box:~$ sudo su
root@box:~# fdformat /dev/fd0H1440
Double-sided, 80 tracks, 18 sec/track. Total capacity 1440 kB
Formatting... done
Verifying... done
root@box:~# mkfs -t vfat -c /dev/fd0H1440
sh: mkfs: not found
root@box:~# mkfs -t vfat -c /dev/fd0H1440
sh: mkfs: not found
root@box:~# mkfs.vfat
mkfs.vfat 3.0.3 (18 May 2009)
No device specified!
Usage: mkdosfs [-A] [-c] [-C] [-v] [-I] [-l bad-block-file] [-b backup-boot-sector]
       [-m boot-msg-file] [-n volume-name] [-i volume-id]
       [-s sectors-per-cluster] [-S logical-sector-size] [-f number-of-FATs]
       [-h hidden-sectors] [-F fat-size] [-r root-dir-entries] [-R reserved-sectors]
       /dev/name [blocks]
root@box:~# mkfs.vfat /dev/fd0
mkfs.vfat 3.0.3 (18 May 2009)
root@box:~#

i tried using the mount tool to mount the floppy and the button still does not turn green.
there's other ideas i'm going to try.

thanks again.   

[ejames82]

this diskette is a 3m, according to the package linux is not listed as it's 'compatible with', so i decided to try a verbatim.  i now notice that the 3m disk is 'locked' (the plastic block is pushed to the read-only position).  maybe this new discovery was my problem (hopefully).  we'll see.
by the way, i doubt that the 3m won't work with linux, though it may be possible.
thanks.