topic Re: Floppy disk file system? in Operating System - HP-UX

Floppy disk file system?

Mike Nemeth — Tue, 05 Dec 2000 17:12:22 GMT

Is it possible to create a file system on a floppy
disk and then mount the disk?
What commands are needed?

I want to be abbe to put scripts and small programs on the floppy
to mount temperarily on other (production) systems.
Theses system neede to be squeeky clean; don't even
want to coy the file then delete because of security issues.

Re: Floppy disk file system?

Cheryl Griffin — Tue, 05 Dec 2000 17:48:45 GMT

Have you tried mounting the floppy and copying the files there?

# mkdir /floppy (to create mountpoint)
# mount /dev/dsk/{floppy_device} /floppy
# cp {files} /floppy
# umount /floppy

Take the disk to the other machine, mount it, copy the files off, then umount.

Re: Floppy disk file system?

Mike Nemeth — Tue, 05 Dec 2000 18:07:10 GMT

That produces unreconized file system on mount.

Re: Floppy disk file system?

Kofi ARTHIABAH — Tue, 05 Dec 2000 18:22:24 GMT

Would mediainit or newfs help you?

Re: Floppy disk file system?

Patrick Wallek — Tue, 05 Dec 2000 18:45:36 GMT

This link is talking about floppy drives on HP-UX 9 but it may still help you, specifically the newfs step:

http://us-support2.external.hp.com/cki/bin/doc.pl/sid=88bcc50a0a47554801/screen=ckiDisplayDocument?docId=200000024604168

Another link:

http://us-support2.external.hp.com/cki/bin/doc.pl/sid=88bcc50a0a47554801/screen=ckiDisplayDocument?docId=200000006341530

Re: Floppy disk file system?

Mike Nemeth — Tue, 05 Dec 2000 19:16:38 GMT

Kofi and Patrick you'e on the right track I'm sure , but the hpux 9.0 doc gives: newfs -n and that returns illegal option.

I'm try to be very careful in what I do so don't mess up my system.

I was hopeing someone has done this before, so I could remove some of the risk.

Re: Floppy disk file system?

Patrick Wallek — Tue, 05 Dec 2000 19:36:18 GMT

Do a 'man dosif'. I think this will give you some useful information.

To summarize:

Format the floppy on a PC. Then you can use the HPUX dos* commands (doscp, dosls, etc -- 'man -k dos' to get a list') on the floppy with the syntax 'doscp /etc/hosts /dev/dsk/c#t#d#:/etc/hosts' to copy the /etc/hosts files from your unix machine to the /etc/ directory on the floppy drive.

I think this will accomplish what you want without having to mount or newfs the floppy and it will be portable between your HPUX boxes.

Re: Floppy disk file system?

Cheryl Griffin — Tue, 05 Dec 2000 20:10:11 GMT

You can newfs the disk drive if needed with a command like:
# newfs -F hfs /dev/rfloppy/{floppy_device}

The only risk involved is getting the name of the floppy device correct.

It will help us if you provide the model floppy drive and os level you are working with.

Re: Floppy disk file system?

Mike Nemeth — Wed, 06 Dec 2000 10:32:15 GMT

Cheryl , this worked completely correctly and accomplish ed
what I want to do! Thank you. I'm suprized it didn't
need any options!

Re: Floppy disk file system?

Cheryl Griffin — Wed, 06 Dec 2000 11:47:03 GMT

That is good news.
Happy copying!
Cheryl