Trying to format an A: disk

[Daniel ~]

I'm using Disk utility, I tried all formats offered One asked that I partion, it can't do that either...I need a bootable floppy to update my BIOS

"Error creating partition table: helper exited with exit code 1: In part_create_partition_table: device_file=/dev/fd0, scheme=0
got it
got disk
committed to disk
BLKRRPART ioctl failed for /dev/fd0: Invalid argument"

[Daniel ~]

I thought I was getting clever...I grabbed an old floppy that has the Asus install on it and was just going to pull the BIOS file off it and put the new one one it... but neither "Disk utility" nor "Computer" can see the medium, they see the floppy drive as does my system at boot. But can't open the drive for me??? Can't mount my drive for me, can't see my blank disk, nor one that has part of software I need on it.

Certainly it should be able to format my floppy for me! I'm feeling abused":O}

[Daniel ~]

Just tried Patti machine...what is it I don't know!? I never had this trouble before... around two years since I needed a floppy., I'll try Debian...sigh

Same thing in Debian

Error creating partition table: helper exited with exit code 1: In part_create_partition_table: device_file=/dev/fd0, scheme=0
got it
got disk
committed to disk
BLKRRPART ioctl failed for /dev/fd0: Invalid argument

[Daniel ~]

Ok I can see I'm up against it with my floppy Drive... Unbuntu decided I didn't need one, which mostly I don't, except now!

I found this on mint::

"After about half a day of trying to figure out why my floppy drive would not mount in Mint, it turns out that the good people at Ubuntu decided to disable the floppy module from loading at startup. Now, some users may not notice this change at all, since they don't use their floppy drive. However, those of us that do, will also tear out hair, until we stumble across this solution. To paraphrase the solution, here is what you must do:

1. Open up your favorite text editor as root, and edit /etc/fstab
2. Comment out the line that mentions your floppy device. For example, here is mine after the fact:
#/dev/fd0 /media/floppy0 vfat users,noauto 0 0
3. You may now mount your floppy. (If it doesn't show up in nautilus, type the following into a terminal: sudo mount /dev/fd0 /media/floppy0) (If that reports an unknown filesystem, then type sudo mount -t msdos /dev/fd0 /media/floppy0)
4. If you ever need to delete a file from the floppy, it is best to press Shift + delete rather than just pressing delete. This will permenantly remove the selected file(s), rather than sending them to a trash bin hidden on the floppy.


My /etc/fstab looks like this... a little help putting these two together would be appreceated, don't want to mess this up":O}

# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# Use 'blkid' to print the universally unique identifier for a
# device; this may be used with UUID= as a more robust way to name devices
# that works even if disks are added and removed. See fstab(5).
#
# <file system> <mount point> <type> <options> <dump> <pass>
proc /proc proc nodev,noexec,nosuid 0 0
# / was on /dev/sda1 during installation
UUID=156e052d-f6c6-45a7-8fb7-d7e15f970270 / ext4 errors=remount-ro 0 1
# swap was on /dev/sda5 during installation
UUID=332156ac-610a-4080-a251-b14e81d7315e none swap sw 0 0
/dev/fd0 /media/floppy0 auto rw,user,noauto,exec,utf8 0 0
/dev/sr0 /media/floppy1 auto rw,user,noauto,exec,utf8 0 0

Also I've forgotten how to uncomment, I know it's just a mark at the start of the line...but which Mark??":O}

[Daniel ~]

Problem solved, booted to a thumbdrive and updated my BIOS...Ah! The modern age!

[ThunderRd]

I haven't used a floppy disk for that stuff in several years. I've found that everything I need to do can be done on thumbdrives now, with a fairly current mainboard. Even installing raid drivers in windows, which used to require insertion of a floppy containing the drivers during OS installation.

Good decision, Dan. Now you can throw out the floppy drive forever

[Daniel ~]

I know! I'm about 3-5 years behind the rest of the world, it's slow, but it cuts back on my mistakes...":O}

It and it's ugly, really ugly, ribbon connection have been surgically removed, Know anyone who wants to buy one?

[chrisbard]

format a:

ups that is DOS not linucs

[Daniel ~]

That's why the gods of Linux have shown me the better way Chris!

Poor Chris, the "Other OS" doesn't have any gods do you? No, just shabby little accountants and lawyers!

Forgive them Linux for they know perfectly well the incredible amount of code they've stolen from the righteous!

It all comes down to weather you care who or what you support, or just what you percive them to do for you.

[chrisbard]

Sorry Daniel I've grown up with DOS commands and I've used Windows 3.1!

[Daniel ~]

I never grew up enough to get beyond "Format C", But I too used 3.1.

But then rumors began to grow up around MS, rumors that became substantiated over and over again...These are evil people.

To help them is to help further evil in the world. At one point, only the hard-core Linux guru could really get away from MS.

But my constant prayers were answered.

For most of us, there is now a choice and not at all a bad one.

But most refuse to see that there is a choice.

Most would not see this as a moral dilemma...

But look around you, this is the world most people have made.*

If we do what most people do how will we ever make a difference?

We do want a different world than the one we have created ...do we not?

[Aedan]

Originally Posted by Daniel ~

"Error creating partition table: helper exited with exit code 1: In part_create_partition_table: device_file=/dev/fd0, scheme=0
got it
got disk
committed to disk
BLKRRPART ioctl failed for /dev/fd0: Invalid argument"

You what? I'm not sure what Linux is barking here, but you don't partition floppy disks, so I'm not surprised it failed!

[Daniel ~]

Ah, aren't you surprized I didn't know that? LOL

I was just mindlessly trying everything looking for anything that would work... it's called science dude! ":O}

[Daniel ~]

Just so you all know...

My New board doesn't have a single IDE hookup, nor an A: drive. Asus must be so proud of themselves being so modern and all, Hell I was proud just to be reading their manule... and I was waiting for this part of the manual to scroll up...

I wanted Asus to kick my A: drive's ass!! ( Like Linux kicked mine for having an A: Drive!)

Here's where Asus tells the knuckle draggers to get a LIFE! To get a thumb drive and rejoin the world!

(Like I had to this week, has it only been a week, I felt so much more liberated than that yesterday... After using my Thumb drive to flash my BIOS)

So perhaps you will take a moment with me to enjoy the spectacle and partake of the circus!

From my NEW motherboard manual, read and rejoice knuckle draggers everywhere!

"The motherboard does not provide a floppy drive connector.

You have to use a (here it comes!)

USB floppy disk drive when creating a SATA RAID driver disk. (It gets better ChrisB!)

Windows? XP may not recognize the USB floppy disk drive due to Windows? XP
limitation. To work around this OS limitation, refer to section 4.5.4 Using a USB
floppy disk drive."

Be careful, this could hurt you if you don't laugh!

[Daniel ~]

One can only imagine the speeds attained by a USB 3.0 floppy drive! I mean if you had one...But hey, that was right up there on my parts list anyway...just ran out of money...just in time ":O}

Is this how they keep people from finding out their RAID don't work?

[Aedan]

Perhaps the question should be how many people try to install a ten year old OS like XP on that board? Don't make a comment about Linux - you'll have to remember that Fedora (and Mint and Gentoo) didn't even exist at the time XP came out. You'd have to be on Red Hat Linux 7.1 instead.

[Daniel ~]

But A. They took away a standard piece of hardware, obstinately because "We" don't need it any more. Then they REQUIRE that we acquire a floppy drive we will probably never use again... to install RAID. I didn't even know they made USB floppy drives...can someone confirm this? Has anyone seen one?

To me it's like they first brag that they don't need no estinkin Floppy drive, then they tell you that YOU still do. But just this once! To use their RAID...

[Aedan]

Yeah, I've used USB floppy drives before. Used to be a bit more common with some of the laptops - if a laptop wasn't big enough to include a CD-ROM or floppy, they might come as separate USB devices.

If you slipstream the driver into an XP image, you don't need the floppy either - that's what many people ended up doing with the nVidia RAID driver to get XP installed on nVidia RAID without needing a floppy.

This one's the same for Linux too - no driver for mass storage means you need some way to add the driver to the kernel. At least with Windows you don't have to worry about having to recompile your driver each time the kernel changes! (If you forget, guess what - the machine becomes unbootable!)

[Daniel ~]

One would think, that in the age of Multi-core processors, they would have worked this out a bit better for the end-users. I mean this can be pretty citical stuff for some one trying to set up raid...

[Aedan]

It's the same for any mass storage devices though, RAID or non-RAID. If you wanted to install your OS of choice on your all new holographic storage cube drive, and your OS didn't ship with a driver, what do you do?