Floppy Access Goes Nowhere

[Kurt Wall]

Quoth Net Llama!:
> On 07/05/03 18:44, Kurt Wall wrote:
> >Hi, list,
> >
> >This is strange. I have a standard 3.5" floppy drive. Lately (the last
> >few weeks), every time I want to use the floppy drive, I slap a floppy
> >in, try to mount the drive, and it just hangs. The mtools suite does
> >the same thing. The light goes on as if the disk is being accessed,
> >but the command prompt never returns. If I call the xterm, the disk
> >access continues. Just for kicks, I swapped the drive out with a known
> >good one and still no joy. 
> >
> >Kernel-wise, CONFIG_BLK_DEV_FD is enabled, but CONFIG_BLK_DEV_IDEFLOPPY 
> >isn't (it will be shortly). I don't recall off the top of my head if
> >IDEFLOPPY was configured in the kernel(s) I was running when this
> >last worked. I'm kinda stumped. Any ideas?
> 
> Any errors in dmesg or messages?  If I had to guess, i'd say either the 
> cable is lose, or the floppy controller on the mobo is dead/dying.

No joy with CONFIG_BLK_DEV_IDEFLOPPY, either. I've checked the cable,
and it seems to be okay. Tried it with different floppies, too. I get
I/O errors during the verify stage of fdformat (the format goes just
fine). superformat complains mightily, too. This is on one of the systems
I bought from VA as it was going out of the hardware business (I ended
up buying three - one each for me, my dad, and my brother). I suppose
I could pop for a controller - they couldn't be that expensive.

syslog says:

Jul  5 21:42:10 luther kernel: floppy0: Over/Underrun - retrying
Jul  5 22:01:58 luther kernel: floppy0: Over/Underrun - retrying
Jul  5 22:01:58 luther kernel: floppy0: Over/Underrun - retrying
Jul  5 22:01:59 luther kernel: floppy0: Over/Underrun - retrying

Turning on debug shows all of ioctl()s going across, but nothing
that looked bad to me (but I might not know what misbehavior looks
like, either). A couple of examples:

Jul  5 22:22:32 luther kernel: floppy0: reschedule timeout lock fdc
Jul  5 22:22:32 luther kernel: floppy0: reschedule timeout do wakeup

Kurt
-- 
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