usb floppy drive: help needed; MDK 9.1

[lawsonrc]

My year old laptop (Toshiba 5005-S507) is one of the type that has no internal floppy drive, but came with an external, usb floppy drive.

 

My laptop has been partitioned with Partiition Magic and has the following OSes: WinXP-Home roughly 20 gigs), MDK 9.0 (roughly 9 gigs), and MDK 9.1 (roughly 9 gigs). Eventually MDK 9.0 will be replaced with Libranet 2.8 when it becomes available.

 

Mandrake 9.0 recognizes my external, usb floppy drive, but Mandrake 9.1 (on a separate partition) does not recognize/cannot find it when I plug in the floppy drive.

 

Can anybody give me - a non-techie slow learner - steps on how to fix this problem?

 

I appreciate the help of all the fantastic members of this forum.

 

Sincerely,

 

Richard L.

[MottS]

Well, it's the first time I hear about usb floppy drive.. funny.

 

Could you post which drivers (modules) are loaded when you are in MDK 9.0 AND 9.1 plz? This way we could compare which module is loaded and not .. I guess that could help

 

To know which modules are loaded type lsmod as root.

 

MottS

[lawsonrc]

Thanks, MottS....I'm in my classroom right now and the laptop is locked up in my closet (don't want the high school kids to know I have it here at school for obvious reasons). At the end of the day I'll get it out and go into each version and check out as root the lsmod.

 

Then I'll respond back here in the forum to inform which modules are loaded.

 

Regards,

 

Richard L.

[lawsonrc]

Hey MottS,

 

Wed. evening at the Houston LUG workshop, a member helped me as follows:

 

We booted into MDK9.0 and to the /etc/ directory and the fstab file. In it was located a line:

 

none /mnt/floppy supermount dev=/dev/sda,fs=auto...........(et cetera)

 

I wrote the line down, then restarted the computer and booted into MDK9.1.

We went to the fstab file and made it fstab.old, then we added the line above into the fstab file (right below the similar line for the CD Rom) and copied this edited file into the /etc directory, replacing the fstab.old.

 

Somehow (and I forget when and how) we made a folder for the floppy in /home/richard and I presume linked it to the fstab file in the /etc directory.

And it works.

 

Here's the problem. I want a shortcut (i.e. application launcher) on the desktop

 

I dragged and dropped the folder from /home/richard directory. When it gave me choices "move, copy, or create a link", I created a link. I now have a folder with a down-arrow in the bottom left corner with, I think (--it is so small) a lock behind the down-arrow. And this shortcut works, too.

 

However, I don't want the desktop shortcut to use a folder icon, I want it to have a floppy icon.

 

So I right-clicked ->properties to change the icon and browsed "other icons" to choose the floppy-mdk icon. When I click "OK" I get:

 

Type: Locked Directory

Contents: Directory

Location: /home/richard/Desktop

Size: 0 B (0)

Free space on /mnt/floppy

Points to: /mnt/floppy

 

Then I click on OK again and get a "Sorry"...Could not save properties. You do not have sufficient access to write to /home/richard/Desktop/floppy/.directory.

 

I have done Ctrl-Alt-F1 and logged in to root with password, then Ctrl-Alt-F7 back to GUI and tried it, but no luck...same "Sorry" message.

 

I have also opened a terminal and done su and password with the same results.

 

I want a pretty icon instead of a folder on the desktop for the floppy, just like in MDK 9.0.

 

Now in Gnome 2.2, I do have a pretty icon there already. I wish KDE3.1 would be as nice as Gnome 2.2 is.

 

All help and suggestions are greatly appreciated. :)

 

Sincerely,

 

Richard L.

 

P.S. Is this all happening because I didn't have the external floppy connected during the initial installation of MDK9.1???? :roll:

[MottS]

Hey that's nice you solved the problem !!

Is this all happening because I didn't have the external floppy connected during the initial installation of MDK9.1???? :roll:

YES. If I would have know that before, I would have told you the fstab thing. But problem solved!

 

I want a pretty icon instead of a folder on the desktop for the floppy, just like in MDK 9.0.

 

Right-clic the folder on your desktop and delete it. Now right-clic the desktop and choose CreateNew->FloppyDevice. Then write a nice name in the General tab and choose your floppy folder in the Device tab and clic OK. That should do the trick

 

MOttS

[lawsonrc]

Hi MottS,

 

I appreciate your help :); however, it didn't work.

 

Here is what worked. I deleted the icon I had made.

 

I right-clicked on the desktop ->Configure desktop ->Behavior/Behaviour (since you live in my favorite city of Montreal...I'll be there to cool down from the Houston,TX heat the beginning of July for four days, but I'm off topic!)

 

I checked/ticked "Display devices on Desktop" and took it from there.

 

I must give credit to my fellow Houstonian bvc, a "very wise" moderator of this forum, for his assistance.

 

Merci mille fois a vous aussi! :D

 

Richard L.

 

P.S.(Can't wait to speak French again! Je m'impatiente a parler francais encore!)

[aRTee]

We booted into MDK9.0 and to the /etc/ directory and the fstab file. In it was located a line:

 

none /mnt/floppy supermount dev=/dev/sda,fs=auto...........(et cetera)

 

I wrote the line down, then restarted the computer and booted into MDK9.1.

 

Hi, nice you managed to fix things.

Just wanted to say:

write things down??? You have this on the same computer, you could have just mounted that other partition, if you don't know how to do it with

mount

you could just go into MCC, hardware, disk, (or run diskdrake), config, then click the partition mdk9.0 was on, make/select a mountpoint for it, then mount it.

I have all my other partitions mounted, my alternative linux root at /alt and the alternative /home (I need that so I can run anything, incl very instable stuff, as the alternative linux, but want to mimic the final setup) under /althome.

You can just make mountpoints under /mnt/

 

No writing down (risking mistakes...) anymore....