Use floppy under Win XP guest

oturpin · Post by **oturpin** » 9. Feb 2009, 00:27

Hello,

I am running VM on Mandriva host. My guest is a Win XP.
I am trying to use the floppy under XP but each time I activate floppy, the VM blocks with error message:

Cannot open host device '/dev/fd0' for read/write access. Check the permissions of that device ('/bin/ls -l /dev/fd0'): Most probably you need to be member of the device group. Make sure that you logout/login after changing the group settings of the current user (VERR_ACCESS_DENIED).
Unknown error creating VM (VERR_ACCESS_DENIED).

Code de résultat :
NS_ERROR_FAILURE (0x80004005)
Composant :
Console
Interface :
IConsole {e3c6d4a1-a935-47ca-b16d-f9e9c496e53e}

I verified that the user is correctly configured in vboxusers and floppy groups.
I verified that /dev/fd0 is rw accessible.

Could anyone advise me some checks or configurations ?

Thx

Post by **baf** » 9. Feb 2009, 01:16

Is the floppy mounted in the host?
If so umount it.

oturpin · Post by **oturpin** » 9. Feb 2009, 09:50

Hi Baf,

Thx for your answer.
I checked twice. Floppy is not mounted on mandriva host. The entry /dev/fd0 is present in /etc/fstab but not mounted.

When I start my VM (with floppy activated), I can see the light of the floppy drive which is lit constantly... Is that a clue ?

Thx

jbadiella · Post by **jbadiella** » 17. Feb 2009, 23:18

I've got more or less the same problem, but haven't find a solution yet.

I have an openSUSE 11.1, and two guests (a Windows XP and an MS-DOS). None of them can access the floppy drive (/dev/fd0), though permissions are OK.

However, the VM doesn'block nor I get any error (excepting that of the guest system telling it can't read the floppy).

Post by **Sasquatch** » 19. Feb 2009, 20:02

I tried floppy once too a while ago, just for a test. I noticed that I had to have to floppy mounted in the Host. I found that strange, but it was the only way to get it working. Sort of. Swapping the floppy, remounting it every time didn't help much to keep it working.

Post by **stephanecharette** » 19. Feb 2009, 22:55

I haven't used the floppy in over a year, but last time I tried with VB I found it worked much better for me to create .img images of the floppy, and mount the images instead of the actual floppy.

If I remember correctly, this is what I did:

1) insert floppy into drive
2) on the host, open up a shell
3) use the command: cat /dev/fd0 > disk1.img
4) repeat steps 1-3 for all floppies you'll need in VB

Then in VB, bring up the "Devices->Mount Floppy" window and add/select the .img file you need to mount.

Stéphane