Floppy disk file system?

[Mike Nemeth]

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.

[Cheryl Griffin]

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.

[Mike Nemeth]

That produces unreconized file system on mount.

[Kofi ARTHIABAH]

Would mediainit or newfs help you?

[Patrick Wallek]

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

[Mike Nemeth]

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.

[Patrick Wallek]

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.

[Cheryl Griffin · Accepted solution]

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.

[Mike Nemeth]

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

[Cheryl Griffin]

That is good news.
Happy copying!
Cheryl