[Info-mtools] Trouble accessing 2M formatted disks

[Yuri van Oers]

Hi,

These last few days I've been trying to access some old floppy disks I 
found, formatted with 2M. I was pleased to read that 2M is supported under 
Linux, but my efforts have been unsuccessful so far.

My understanding is that 2M support should be transparant. However, I get:

$ mdir
Can't set disk parameters for A: Operation not permitted
Cannot initialize 'A:'

No matter what I do, I can't seem to make it read the disk. In the end I 
booted into MS-DOS, loaded 2M 3.0 and was able to access the disks.
So I know:
- my hardware can do it, and
- the disks aren't bad

In Linux, I've been root, have tried making changes to mtools.conf - all 
to no avail.

Below is more info on my system FYI. Can someone hint what I am, or 
something is, doing wrong?

Thanks in advance!
Yuri van Oers



I've notice that this appears in the kernel log (once):

------------[ cut here ]------------
WARNING: at drivers/block/floppy.c:1041 setup_rw_floppy+0x1bc/0x2ce()
Hardware name: P5Q DELUXE
floppy_disable_hlt() scheduled for removal in 2012
Modules linked in: nvidia(P) i2c_i801 aic7xxx pcspkr emu10k1_gp gameport 
asus_atk0110
Pid: 0, comm: kworker/0:1 Tainted: P            3.1.6 #3
Call Trace:
 <IRQ>  [<ffffffff8102e21a>] ? warn_slowpath_common+0x78/0x8c
 [<ffffffff8102e2cf>] ? warn_slowpath_fmt+0x45/0x4a
 [<ffffffff8122a99c>] ? setup_rw_floppy+0x1bc/0x2ce
 [<ffffffff81037f2e>] ? run_timer_softirq+0x165/0x1f1
 [<ffffffff8122a7e0>] ? fd_watchdog+0xa6/0xa6
 [<ffffffff8104a2e1>] ? ktime_get+0x5f/0xb9
 [<ffffffff81032d26>] ? __do_softirq+0x7f/0x106
 [<ffffffff813c9f6c>] ? call_softirq+0x1c/0x30
 [<ffffffff81003532>] ? do_softirq+0x31/0x67
 [<ffffffff81016219>] ? smp_apic_timer_interrupt+0x85/0x95
 [<ffffffff813c96cb>] ? apic_timer_interrupt+0x6b/0x70
 <EOI>  [<ffffffff81008071>] ? mwait_idle+0x5c/0x5f
 [<ffffffff81000830>] ? cpu_idle+0x52/0x66
---[ end trace 633f189e3ccef2f9 ]---

... as well as the following, every time I try to access a 2M disk:

end_request: I/O error, dev fd0, sector 18
Buffer I/O error on device fd0, logical block 2
end_request: I/O error, dev fd0, sector 24
Buffer I/O error on device fd0, logical block 3

Install info:
Gentoo Linux
Linux kernel 3.1.6
mtools  4.0.15