[NBLUG/talk] Floppy disk is inactive.

[Andrew]

Ian Sutherland wrote on Tue, 17 Aug 2004 15:15:37 -0700:

> [root at localhost dev]# ls -l fd0
> -rw-rw----  1 isutherl floppy 1474560 Aug 16 07:34 fd0

Aha! There's the problem. Somehow you've managed to replace the
block special device /dev/fd0 with a regular file. As it turns
out, that file is exactly the size of one 1440k floppy disk. And
I see the new file is owned by isutherl, not root. isutherl, a
mere mortal, should not be able to replace a device file which is
(or should be) owned by root. Would I be right in guessing that
you were trying to write a floppy image file onto a floppy disk,
and that, as root, you copied the file from isutherl's $HOME to
/dev/fd0? That's one way to end up with what you've got now.

I see Lincoln has shown you how to use "mknod". However, if
you're running a 2.4 or newer kernel, there may be an easier way
to get your floppy device back. Try moving the current /dev/fd0
file out of the way (or deleting it entirely, if you're sure you
don't need its contents) and rebooting. This may allow the system
to create a proper block device file for fd0. If that doesn't
work, then try mknod.

A.

PS: To learn a little more about "mknod" and device files, try
Googling for [mknod device major minor]. Hopefully, that will
turn up a few pages written in layman's terms.