# How To ? use computer Floppy Drive with the Ubuntu 12.04LTS O.S.



## USAGUY (Feb 11, 2014)

I have a newly installed Ubuntu 12.04LTS O.S. installed on this 2Ghz. Pent Iv , 1.5 gig ram. Everything is working beautiful but I now no longer have any control that works with the Floppy 1.44mb drive. There is a floppy icon in the computer panel showing with the CD Drive, CD/DVD Drive, and the Files HD Drive.
The floppy drive shows unknown properties, The mount -Fails, and the read media only will try to read the inserted floppy diskette, but fails to ever open any files on the disk, I have JPEG files on the diskette. I can open and read the same identical
JPEG images that are stored a 4gig Flash drive, so I am positive that my O.S. can open these files.

I can also open and display the images from the floppy diskette with my old IBM Think pad 390 Laptop that is still working with Windows 98se installed on it, this tells me nothing is wrong with the JPEG files on the diskette.

Who am I ? I am a 73 yo retired veteran, I am somewhat familiar with DOS, Windows 3.1,Windows 95,98,98se,Windows X, & 7. I am not a programmer and have no idea what code to inter into the Ubuntu terminal or any software update to fix this.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.

USAGUY.


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## Macboatmaster (Jan 15, 2010)

The easy answer is to copy the jpeg images from the floppy on the windows computer to a flash pen and then use that on Ubuntu

Or if you really wish to persevere
http://askubuntu.com/questions/63142/how-do-i-get-a-floppy-drive-working?rq=1


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## craisin (Oct 26, 2004)

i got a usb floppy i never use it anyway my SD card reader is more usefull


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## USAGUY (Feb 11, 2014)

This is not the answer I am looking for, I want to use the floppy drive that came with the machine to input data that is stored on existing floppy diskettes for use on a 1980's ($60,000) CNC Milling machine that ONLY has a floppy drive for I/O computer generated projects. The procedure is as follows, the data project is created on the computer, saved on a floppy diskette, the diskette is then inserted into the milling machines floppy drive and the milling machine follows it's instructions from the data on the floppy diskette. I have several hundred projects for repeat projects on these diskettes, many need to be updated.


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## prunejuice (Apr 3, 2002)

Did the floppy drive ever work in this computer?


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## Macboatmaster (Jan 15, 2010)

Is the floppy disc seen if you issue an fdisk cmd in a terminal prompt and did you see the link as to how to proceed on my post 2


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## USAGUY (Feb 11, 2014)

Floppy hardware is working fine, I used my windows 98se start up diskette to boot the computer, fix-disk utility to partition the hard drive, re boot and format the hard drive to prepare it for the Ubuntu 12.04 LTS O.S. that I have successfully installed on the computer, every thing works fantastic EXCEPT for the floppy drive. One would think that any O.S. with any clout would install the floppy drive by default, something is missing here.

Respectfully...USAGUY )o;


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## Macboatmaster (Jan 15, 2010)

open a terminal prompt
type
fdisk -l

see if the disc is found albeit that the drive will not mount and at the risk of asking the same question again have you tried
as per the link

http://askubuntu.com/questions/63142/how-do-i-get-a-floppy-drive-working?rq=1

OR any or all of the ten sub links on the right of the page
I have used Ubuntu for sometime and I have never had a problem that could not be solved with the use of sudo cmd or the install packages.

I have just read your post again

I am sorry I missed the suggestion on my reply
Have you tried another floppy
to see if that is recognised - I do appreciate that this one is read in windows and the files on this are read when copied to a flash pen - but I think it may be worthwhile trying another floppy - blank to see if it can be mounted and written to


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## USAGUY (Feb 11, 2014)

-desktop:~$ fdisk -1
fdisk: invalid option -- '1'
Usage:
fdisk [options] <disk> change partition table
fdisk [options] -l <disk> list partition table(s)
fdisk -s <partition> give partition size(s) in blocks

Options:
-b <size> sector size (512, 1024, 2048 or 4096)
-c[=<mode>] compatible mode: 'dos' or 'nondos' (default)
-h print this help text
-u[=<unit>] display units: 'cylinders' or 'sectors' (default)
-v print program version
-C <number> specify the number of cylinders
-H <number> specify the number of heads
-S <number> specify the number of sectors per track

THIS IS WHAT THE TERM INPUT YOU SUGGESTED RETURNS
and YES I HAVE SEARCHED AND INQUIRED FOR AN ANSWER AT UBUNTU"S WEB SITE, SOMEONE ASKED ME WHAT A FLOPPY WAS - THAT'S WHEN I CAME HERE. I Really appreciate everyones help here. Might Note that this is not a USB floppy, It is in the computer connected to the Intel MB via a ribbon cable and PW Supply. Several diskettes have been tried, after verifying they all work perfectly in windows laptop.


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## USAGUY (Feb 11, 2014)

Macboatmaster said:


> open a terminal prompt
> type
> fdisk -l
> 
> ...


This menu does-not exist on my Ubuntu 12.04LTS O.S. - I do not have any advanced settings, and I am logged in as the administrator.....nobody else uses my computer


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## TonyB25 (Jan 1, 1970)

Why can't you copy the data off from the floppy?


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## Macboatmaster (Jan 15, 2010)

it is not fdisk -1 it is fdisk -l



> fdisk [options] -l <disk> list partition table(s)


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## DaveBurnett (Nov 11, 2002)

Can you do me a favour and try either Puppy Precise or Puppy Lucid linux.
Both are based on Ubuntu Binaries, but Puppy is deliberately designed to work on older machines.


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## Macboatmaster (Jan 15, 2010)

This is a coincidence someone has asked the same question on the Ubuntu forum



> 0
> 
> down vote
> 
> ...


It seems you are the not the only person having the problem - hope that makes you feel a bit better

HOWEVER found this for you on Ubuntu help forum
http://askubuntu.com/questions/168597/how-do-i-use-a-floppy-drive-in-ubuntu


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## craisin (Oct 26, 2004)

my USB floppy is USB 1.1 works with USB 2.0 and it reads and writes twice a fast as a normal floppy.

Sometimes its not about what you think should work but what does work

if you win98 works with it why not use that?

I bought my USB floppy when they were easy to get 

my friend is a Wnidows user and he uses a USB2.0 floppy

there are 2 different types of 1.44 floppy as I understand it


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## DaveBurnett (Nov 11, 2002)

Wrong and wrong.
The write speed of a floppy is limited by the actual physical write speed of the drive which is always going to be slower than the transfer speed of even USB 1.0.

There were two types of 3.5 in floppy drives: a 720K drive and a 1.44Mb drive. The 1.44 drive COULD use both capacity disks..

I will dig out the floppy drive for my Dell C840 that has a P4 2.4Ghz CPU. It has Puppy linux on it and I'll see if it recognizes the floppy drive. I can only test it in the bay or as a parallel external drive(if I can find the cable for that)

Edit:
Both Lucid Puppy and Precise Puppy recognise and will write to my floppy drive in the bay.
Neither of the Puppies had been started with the drive before this and both the drive and the diskette I used have not been used for well over 5 years. Precise found the drive and put an icon on the desktop straight away, Lucid needed to be prompted with a mount before the icon showed, but that is down to the way I have it set up.
I cannot find my parallel cable connector just now and since I've never used it I don't even know if it is good.


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## managed (May 24, 2003)

I would invest in a Usb floppy drive, they are quite cheap and it should work on any computer and any OS.


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