How do I use a floppy drive in Ubuntu?

  1. Check if the floppy module is loaded:

    lsmod | grep -i floppy
    

    This command should not return anything. If it returns "floppy" then you have the floppy module loaded and this answer does not solve your problem.

    If you want to load the floppy module:

    sudo modprobe -v floppy
    lsmod | grep -i floppy
    
  2. Try adding your username in the floppy group:

    sudo adduser $USER floppy
    
  3. You could also try installing fdutils package:

    $ apt-cache show fdutils
    Package: fdutils
    [...]
    Description-en: Linux floppy utilities
     This package contains utilities for formatting extra capacity
     disks, automatic floppy disk mounting and unmounting, etc.
     .
     The package includes the following items:
     .
      - superformat: formats high capacity disks (up to 1992k
        for high density disks or up to 3984k for extra density
         disks);
      - fdmount: automatically mounts/unmounts disks when they are
        inserted/removed;
      - xdfcopy: formats, reads and writes OS/2's XDF disks;
      - MAKEFLOPPIES: creates the floppy devices in /dev;
      - getfdprm: prints the current disk geometry (number of
        sectors, track and heads etc.);
      - setfdprm: sets the current disk geometry;
      - fdrawcmd: sends raw commands to the floppy driver;
      - floppycontrol: configures the floppy driver;
      - general documentation about the floppy driver.
     .
     Note that these utilities do not work for USB floppy drives, because
     these do not allow direct access to the floppy controller.
    Homepage: http://fdutils.linux.lu/
    

    fdmount seems useful. Try: sudo fdmount -l

  4. Check if your floppy drive is listed here:

    nautilus computer://
    
  5. If you're still facing problems, post the output of the above commands, plus this:

    dmesg > dmesg.log
    gedit dmesg.log
    

Post the content of dmesg.log to a pastebin somewhere (i.e. http://www.pastebin.com ) and give us the link.

P.S. You may be suffering from this bug: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/441835 -- Try:

udisks --mount /dev/fd0

Here's the actual answer to make the floppy drive work.

  1. open the terminal and login as sudo

  2. open gedit as sudo

  3. Open and edit this file: /lib/udev/rules.d/80-udisks.rules

  4. find this section of it (it's near the bottom. You can use "Search" on gedit's tool bar and find "PC floppy" it will take you to it.

    ####################################################
    
    # PC floppy drives
    #
    KERNEL=="fd*", ENV{ID_DRIVE_FLOPPY}="0"
    
    # USB floppy drives
    #
    SUBSYSTEMS=="usb", ATTRS{bInterfaceClass}=="08", ATTRS{bInterfaceSubClass}=="04", ENV{ID_DRIVE_FLOPPY}="0"
    
    # ATA Zip drives
    #
    ENV{ID_VENDOR}=="*IOMEGA*", ENV{ID_MODEL}=="*ZIP*", ENV{ID_DRIVE_FLOPPY_ZIP}="0"
    
    #####################################################
    
  5. Replace all the "1"s with "0"s like I've done in 3 areas. (Your script will have "1"s, I'm showing the corrected portion) Which look like this: ENV{ID_DRIVE_FLOPPY}="0"

  6. Restart the PC and Floppy support you will have.

Note: Floppy WILL NOT auto launch a window when inserted, they were made before that! You will need to go to "places" or "My Computer" and double click on it. Remember to unmount it as you would a USB stick (or should a USB stick) otherwise Your next floppy you insert won't mount. Also remember to eject the floppy before restarting (internal) as your PC will try to boot from it, which can be very annoying.