Virtual Floppy drive not showing up

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mpack
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Re: Virtual Floppy drive not showing up

Post by mpack »

Just a quick additional comment on this.
hakito wrote: The reason why i wanted a Win10 VM with floppy support is simply because it's a student exercise do develop a C-application with FA12 support.
I would have thought something more useful in the modern era would be a better student exercise. For example the FAT16 format is virtually identical to FAT12 except for a minor structure tweak here and there, and is still in use today as the filesystem of smaller sdcards (less than 2GB), still in use in some embedded devices. If you go up to FAT32 then you are even closer to the modern era: most USB thumb drives 32GB and below still use that format. Students still need only create an image file - there are free tools available (such as balenaEtcher) which can "burn" an image file to a physical USB stick or sdcard, as anyone who owns a Raspberry Pi will know!
scottgus1
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Re: Virtual Floppy drive not showing up

Post by scottgus1 »

I made a freshly-installed Windows 10 VM with a floppy drive in the storage settings, and filled it with a Virtualbox-made new floppy image. The floppy drive showed up in Windows Device Manager and File Explorer. Here is the log and a screenshot:
w10-64 floppy.png
w10-64 floppy.png (109.96 KiB) Viewed 2627 times
windows 10-2022-05-28-09-34-35.log
(156.43 KiB) Downloaded 4 times
A snippet of the log which shows the floppy controller, drive, and image being used in the VM:
00:00:04.965838 [/Devices/i82078/] (level 2)
00:00:04.965839
00:00:04.965839 [/Devices/i82078/0/] (level 3)
00:00:04.965840 Trusted <integer> = 0x0000000000000001 (1)
00:00:04.965841
00:00:04.965841 [/Devices/i82078/0/Config/] (level 4)
00:00:04.965842 DMA <integer> = 0x0000000000000002 (2)
00:00:04.965843 IOBase <integer> = 0x00000000000003f0 (1 008)
00:00:04.965844 IRQ <integer> = 0x0000000000000006 (6)
00:00:04.965845 MemMapped <integer> = 0x0000000000000000 (0)
00:00:04.965845
00:00:04.965846 [/Devices/i82078/0/LUN#0/] (level 4)
00:00:04.965847 Driver <string> = "VD" (cb=3)
00:00:04.965848
00:00:04.965848 [/Devices/i82078/0/LUN#0/Config/] (level 5)
00:00:04.965849 Format <string> = "RAW" (cb=4)
00:00:04.965850 MaybeReadOnly <integer> = 0x0000000000000001 (1)
00:00:04.965851 Mountable <integer> = 0x0000000000000001 (1)
00:00:04.965852 Path <string> = "F:\VirtualboxGuests\windows 10\windows 10_1.img" (cb=48)
00:00:04.965853 Type <string> = "Floppy 1.44" (cb=12)
00:00:04.965853
00:00:04.965854 [/Devices/i82078/0/LUN#999/] (level 4)
00:00:04.965855 Driver <string> = "MainStatus" (cb=11)
00:00:04.965856
00:00:04.965856 [/Devices/i82078/0/LUN#999/Config/] (level 5)
00:00:04.965857 DeviceInstance <string> = "i82078/0" (cb=9)
00:00:04.965858 First <integer> = 0x0000000000000000 (0)
00:00:04.965859 Last <integer> = 0x0000000000000001 (1)
00:00:04.965860 pConsole <integer> = 0x00000000024b4170 (38 486 384)
00:00:04.965861 papLeds <integer> = 0x00000000024b4940 (38 488 384)
00:00:04.965862 pmapMediumAttachments <integer> = 0x00000000024b5588 (38 491 528)
Hakito, your log also has these lines in it:
00:00:04.483202 [/Devices/i82078/] (level 2)
00:00:04.483202
00:00:04.483202 [/Devices/i82078/0/] (level 3)
00:00:04.483203 Trusted <integer> = 0x0000000000000001 (1)
00:00:04.483203
00:00:04.483204 [/Devices/i82078/0/Config/] (level 4)
00:00:04.483204 DMA <integer> = 0x0000000000000002 (2)
00:00:04.483205 IOBase <integer> = 0x00000000000003f0 (1 008)
00:00:04.483205 IRQ <integer> = 0x0000000000000006 (6)
00:00:04.483206 MemMapped <integer> = 0x0000000000000000 (0)
00:00:04.483206
00:00:04.483207 [/Devices/i82078/0/LUN#0/] (level 4)
00:00:04.483207 Driver <string> = "VD" (cb=3)
00:00:04.483208
00:00:04.483208 [/Devices/i82078/0/LUN#0/Config/] (level 5)
00:00:04.483209 Format <string> = "RAW" (cb=4)
00:00:04.483209 MaybeReadOnly <integer> = 0x0000000000000001 (1)
00:00:04.483210 Mountable <integer> = 0x0000000000000001 (1)
00:00:04.483210 Path <string> = "\\romulus\Public\floppy.img" (cb=28)
00:00:04.483211 Type <string> = "Floppy 1.44" (cb=12)
00:00:04.483211
00:00:04.483211 [/Devices/i82078/0/LUN#0/Config/Plugins/] (level 6)
00:00:04.483212
00:00:04.483212 [/Devices/i82078/0/LUN#0/Config/Plugins/VDPluginCrypt/] (level 7)
00:00:04.483213 Path <string> = "C:\Program Files\Oracle\VirtualBox\ExtensionPacks\Oracle_VM_VirtualBox_Extension_Pack\win.amd64\VDPluginCrypt.DLL" (cb=114)
The extra "plugins" part is apparently because you have the Extension Pack loaded, so the drive contents could be enctrypted. I don't have the EP on that host yet, so my log does not show the plugin.

But it does appear that your VM has the floppy drive in the 'hardware' list, so the VM OS will have to be troubleshot to see if and why the floppy drive is not showing. Check the Device manager for the floppy controller and drive.

Another thing to look at, your floppy image is on a network shared folder. Could this folder not be available when the VM was run and that log was taken?
fth0
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Re: Virtual Floppy drive not showing up

Post by fth0 »

mpack wrote:If Win64 has native support for floppies then I'd expect to see that in a VM
Well, I can see it. ;)

My initial setup consists of a Linux host, VirtualBox 6.1.34 and a Windows 10 Pro 21H2 64-bit guest with the VirtualBox legacy BIOS. Using the VirtualBox Manager, I added the floppy controller and a floppy disk image (created and formatted from within the corresponding dialog), and removed it from the Boot Order list.

In the Windows Explorer, if you unfold This PC in the left pane, the Floppy Disk Drive (A:) will not be shown there right away, only in the right pane as in the screenshot of scottgus1, when This PC is selected in the left pane. After I copied a file to the floppy, it appeared in the left pane. Is that perhaps the reason why you didn't see it?

The C:\Windows\System32\drivers\flpydisk.sys driver is from Microsoft, but I didn't check if it's 64-bit.
hakito
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Joined: 1. Jul 2014, 12:56

Re: Virtual Floppy drive not showing up

Post by hakito »

mpack wrote:I can only assume it's a limitation of Windows.
I agree. I now used a FreeDOS VM for testing the behavior. Thanks anyway!
hakito
Posts: 17
Joined: 1. Jul 2014, 12:56

Re: Virtual Floppy drive not showing up

Post by hakito »

fth0 wrote:.. and a Windows 10 Pro 21H2 64-bit guest with the VirtualBox legacy BIOS.
Does it alsow work if you turn on EFI? With legacy BIOS it also works for me.
fth0
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Re: Virtual Floppy drive not showing up

Post by fth0 »

hakito wrote:Does it alsow work if you turn on EFI? With legacy BIOS it also works for me.
I cannot really answer your question, because it wouldn't work, but for a totally different reason:

Once upon a time, I installed Windows in the VM booting from the VirtualBox legacy BIOS, and the Windows Setup program formatted the (virtual) hard disk with the MBR partitioning scheme. If I had installed Windows in a VM booting with the VirtualBox (U)EFI, the Windows Setup program would have formatted the (virtual) hard disk with the GPT partitioning scheme, including an EFI boot partition. In consequence, enabling EFI in the VM configuration would naturally result in a VM that could only boot into the (U)EFI Shell.
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