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From: Dennis K on 31 Mar 2010 05:42
Hello All,
I've assembled a new PC with an AMD Phenom II CPU and Fedora 11 64 Bit
GNU/Linux installed. I've installed a 1.44M floppy drive and can
generally read floppies OK. The problem is when writing to them.

I get these errors from 'dmesg' which go on and on.

floppy0: probe failed...
end_request: I/O error, dev fd0, sector 0
floppy0: probe failed...
Buffer I/O error on device fd0, logical block 0

I've tried a 64bit GNU/Linux boot disk as well as Puppy Linux, but the
problem persists.

The drive seems to operate fine with Windows XP. After some googling
I've found that this issue seems to exist for others as well, but
because floppies aren't commonly used, theres no solution or much written.

Any ideas? I've tried compiling my own kernel but it made no
difference. The floppy module loads up OK. I just can't write reliably.

Any help appreciated.

From: Lusotec on 31 Mar 2010 06:35
Dennis K wrote:
> Hello All,
> I've assembled a new PC with an AMD Phenom II CPU and Fedora 11 64 Bit
> GNU/Linux installed. I've installed a 1.44M floppy drive and can
> generally read floppies OK. The problem is when writing to them.
>
> I get these errors from 'dmesg' which go on and on.
>
> floppy0: probe failed...
> end_request: I/O error, dev fd0, sector 0
> floppy0: probe failed...
> Buffer I/O error on device fd0, logical block 0
>
> I've tried a 64bit GNU/Linux boot disk as well as Puppy Linux, but the
> problem persists.
>
> The drive seems to operate fine with Windows XP. After some googling
> I've found that this issue seems to exist for others as well, but
> because floppies aren't commonly used, theres no solution or much written.
>
> Any ideas? I've tried compiling my own kernel but it made no
> difference. The floppy module loads up OK. I just can't write reliably.
>
> Any help appreciated.

Is the floppy drive wrote protected?

Floppy drives have a small 'switch' that /tells/ the floppy drive not to
write to it.

Can you format floppy disks?
Try formating a floppy disk.

Maybe the floppy disk is formated in an way Linux does not recognize or is
incompatible with.

Does the floppy have badblocks?
Use the badblocks tool to test the floppy. First do a read only test, then
try a write test.

Windows and Linux may be allocating different blocks for writing and the
blocks that Linux is choosing may just be bad.

Regards.

From: Robert Nichols on 31 Mar 2010 09:16
On 03/31/2010 04:42 AM, Dennis K wrote:
> Hello All,
> I've assembled a new PC with an AMD Phenom II CPU and Fedora 11 64 Bit
> GNU/Linux installed. I've installed a 1.44M floppy drive and can
> generally read floppies OK. The problem is when writing to them.
>
> I get these errors from 'dmesg' which go on and on.
>
> floppy0: probe failed...
> end_request: I/O error, dev fd0, sector 0
> floppy0: probe failed...
> Buffer I/O error on device fd0, logical block 0
>
> I've tried a 64bit GNU/Linux boot disk as well as Puppy Linux, but the
> problem persists.
>
> The drive seems to operate fine with Windows XP. After some googling
> I've found that this issue seems to exist for others as well, but
> because floppies aren't commonly used, theres no solution or much written.
>
> Any ideas? I've tried compiling my own kernel but it made no
> difference. The floppy module loads up OK. I just can't write reliably.

Try passing the option "floppy=nodma" to the floppy module. With recent
kernels, in /etc/modprobe.d create a new ".conf" file containing the line:

options floppy floppy=nodma

That fixed the problem for me on my ASUS M4A78T-E motherboard. Not the
most efficient way to run the floppy, but for the little use it gets I
really don't care.

--
Bob Nichols AT comcast.net I am "RNichols42"
From: Dennis K on 2 Apr 2010 22:49
On 04/01/2010 12:16 AM, Robert Nichols wrote:
> On 03/31/2010 04:42 AM, Dennis K wrote:
>> Hello All,
>> I've assembled a new PC with an AMD Phenom II CPU and Fedora 11 64 Bit
>> GNU/Linux installed. I've installed a 1.44M floppy drive and can
>> generally read floppies OK. The problem is when writing to them.
>>
>> I get these errors from 'dmesg' which go on and on.
>>
>> floppy0: probe failed...
>> end_request: I/O error, dev fd0, sector 0
>> floppy0: probe failed...
>> Buffer I/O error on device fd0, logical block 0
>>
>> I've tried a 64bit GNU/Linux boot disk as well as Puppy Linux, but the
>> problem persists.
>>
>> The drive seems to operate fine with Windows XP. After some googling
>> I've found that this issue seems to exist for others as well, but
>> because floppies aren't commonly used, theres no solution or much
>> written.
>>
>> Any ideas? I've tried compiling my own kernel but it made no
>> difference. The floppy module loads up OK. I just can't write reliably.
>
> Try passing the option "floppy=nodma" to the floppy module. With recent
> kernels, in /etc/modprobe.d create a new ".conf" file containing the line:
>
> options floppy floppy=nodma
>
> That fixed the problem for me on my ASUS M4A78T-E motherboard. Not the
> most efficient way to run the floppy, but for the little use it gets I
> really don't care.
>
I added a file called floppy-nodma.conf in that directory with the
options line you've specified, but its made it worse!

Please note that in response to the other poster, there is nothing wrong
with the disk or drive, it sort of works in Windows (albeit a small
delay before writing for some reason that may be related).

I've also tried a different floppy drive, various disks with no change
in the outcome. I've had a lot of experience fiddling with computer
hardware for the past 15 years, but I'm not sure what the problem here is.

From: Mark Hobley on 3 Apr 2010 01:51
Dennis K <rotflol(a)hotmail.com> wrote:

> Please note that in response to the other poster, there is nothing wrong
> with the disk or drive, it sort of works in Windows (albeit a small
> delay before writing for some reason that may be related).

I have noticed that my laser servo diskette drives have stopped working, since
I upgraded to a newer version of Debian. (It might just be coincidence, but I
need to roll back to an old kernel to find out. I haven't yet got round to
testing this). I am not sure whether my problem is related to your floppy disk
problem (laser servo drives are actually IDE devices, so it might be unrelated).

You might be able to find an old livecd that uses a 2.6.17 or 2.6.18 kernel,
boot using that and test your drives from there. I know that 2.6.17 and 2.6.18
kernels were very reliable in terms of handling hardware on IBM compatible
computers. From 2.6.21 onwards, I have had no end of problems with things like
the keyboard not working, kernel crashing with invalid instructions, drives
not working, etc etc. This might not all be down to the kernel, but that is
high on the list of suspects. I am still investigating this.

Mark.

--
Mark Hobley
Linux User: #370818 http://markhobley.yi.org/

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