Mounting a Floppy Disk
Access floppy disks (FreeBSD 5.2)
Posted 12.06.2003 | Updated 23.05.2006 | Contributed by Noel Sowter & Andy Mallett


Unix treats everything as if it was a file or directory, including the venerable floppy disk drive.

To view the contents of the floppy disk, it must be mounted to a directory in the Unix file system.

mkdir /mnt/floppy
mount_msdos /dev/fd0 /mnt/floppy
ls -l /mnt/floppy

Note that while usually only an admin [root] can mount removable media on a multiuser machine, the man page for mount_msdos will tell you that any user can mount floppies but requires all the correct permissions:

read-write access to /dev/fd0
read-write access and ownership of the mounting directory

To unmount the floppy, make sure you're not currently logged into the floppy directory or you'll get a 'device busy' error.. umount /mnt/floppy

To format a floppy..

-> fdformat /dev/rfd0

Stop press April 2005
Some users have been unable to mount a floppy under FreeBSD 5.2.1.
Noel Sowter has a possible answer..

mkdir /mnt/floppy
mount_msdosfs /dev/fd0 /mnt/floppy
ls -l /mnt/floppy

Note the extra fs after the mount_msdos command. See if it works for you, it works for me!

- Thanx Noel!



- A&N.