Hello all, I began working a lot with ext2fs formatted floppies those last times (moving around sources for a project I'm working on), and it already happend twice that a recently formatted floppy died on me when writing to it on a different machine than the one that created it.
To be more specific, those ext2 floppies were created according to the - I think - standard technique: "fdformat -n /dev/..." then "mkfs -t ext2 -c -m 0 /dev/...". They seem to have a normal life expectancy as long as I use them always on the same linux box. But I got a laptop a while ago that I linuxified, and I started having problems accessing ext2fs floppies on it (floppies that were coming from another box, meaning - the ones I format locally are ok, but can't be read anywhere else). I thought the hardware was to blame (controller or drive - machine is a Toshiba T2130CS), changed it, but problem stayed. Then I though that the Toshiba might have a non-standard floppy controller. Fun thing is, I never had problems accessing non-ext2 floppies (DOS) on it - but then again, I don't use them that often under Linux (and I hardly write to them). Here is a copy of the error message I might get on the laptop: ---------------------<cut>--------------------------------------------- vger:~/scripts# mount /mnt/floppy end_request: I/O error, dev 02:00, sector 3 EXT2-fs: unable to read superblock mount: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/fd0, or too many mounted file systems ---------------------<cut>--------------------------------------------- But now, this problem doesn't seem to be limited to the Toshiba any longer. An ext2 floppy I just created at work could be read with no problem at home, but I killed it when writing to it. Linux versions are 2.0.29-libc5, 2.0.30-libc5 and 2.0.32-libc6. Hardware is Compaq, Toshiba or "no-brand". Anybody care to comment ? Anything obvious I missed out ? Thanks in advance for any advice (or shared experience). Ph. A. -- //\\ \\// ///\\\ SCITEX /*-----------------------------------------------------------------*/ /* Scitex Europe, S.A. | Philippe Andersson */ /* Dreve Richelle, 161, E-F,| PC & Network Specialist */ /* 1410 WATERLOO | [EMAIL PROTECTED] */ /* BELGIUM | +32-2-352.25.93 Fax: +32-2-352.25.84 */ /*-----------------------------------------------------------------*/