Re: Linux 2.4.18 floppy driver EATS floppies

Barry K. Nathan
2002-05-05T23:07:11Z

> I am discovering that any floppy disks that I try to use under Linux
> don't last very long. This seems to be true with both my UP and SMP
> machines, neither of which has ever used its floppy drive enough for
> me to believe that the hardware is reaching the end of its life.

Make sure the boot-time floppy seek option is enabled in your BIOS. While
it shouldn't be necessary nowadays in theory, I've seen some
motherboard/(1.44MB 3.5") floppy drive combinations that require it to be
enabled for the floppy drive to work with any level of consistency.

Also, if a particular disk is acting really strange, try ejecting it,
reinserting it, and trying again.

Both of these pieces of advice apply to Windows as well as Linux, FWIW.

-Barry K. Nathan <barryn@pobox.com>