[Solved] Floppy Drive Doesn't Work

[jadams2337]

Sometimes I need to use the floppy disk drive. I am running VirtualBox 3.0.2 on Ubuntu 9.04, which is the host operating system. I installed Windows XP SP3 as the guest OS. (Guest Additions is also installed.) The floppy drive works fine under Ubuntu. In the virtual Windows XP installation, if I open Windows Explorer it shows the floppy drive as it should, as "31/2 floppy (A:)". If I insert a disk into the floppy drive and click on the floppy drive icon I get this message: "Please Insert a disk into drive A:". In the main VirtualBox program, under Settings>Floppy, "Mount Floppy Drive" is checked off for the host floppy drive. When virtual Windows XP is running, if I look under Devices>Mount Floppy, the host floppy drive is mounted. Whenever the floppy drive is mounted the green l.e.d. light is always on. If I unmount the floppy, the green light goes out. It does not matter whether the green light is on or not, the floppy drive works fine with the host operating system (Ubuntu), but the floppy drive never works with VirtualBox Windows XP.

Is there some setting that I am missing? Please help me to get the floppy disk to work under VirtualBox Windows XP.

Thank you.

jadams2337

[Perryg]

I found that if a floppy was not in the drive when the guest was booted it sometimes caused this behavior.
Put a floppy in and then boot up the guest and see if it detects it. Do not use saved state, you must shutdown the guest.

[jadams2337]

PREVIOUS MESSAGE:
New postby Perryg » 21. Jul 2009, 09:15
I found that if a floppy was not in the drive when the guest was booted it sometimes caused this behavior.
Put a floppy in and then boot up the guest and see if it detects it. Do not use saved state, you must shutdown the guest.
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Thanks for your suggestion. I tried exactly what you suggested; completely shut down virtual Windows XP, and re-booted with a disk in the floppy drive. Still didn't work. In Windows XP, if I run Windows Explorer and click on the icon for the floppy drive (A), I get a message that says "Please insert a disk into drive A". Windows XP can't read the disk.

I noticed that as soon as virtual Windows XP starts to boot up, the green l.e.d. light on the floppy drive came on, and it stays on, whether there is disk in the drive or not. If I switch to Ubuntu linux, and if I run Nautilus file manager, and then click on "floppy0", the floppy disk is read properly, even though the green light stays on the whole time.

Any other ideas?
Thanks.

jadams2337

[Perryg]

Well..... I am concerned that you say the host can read it even though the light stays lite all the time. The light is not supposed to stay lite all the time. Also your profile says OSE other. Can you expand on this? Since IMO there is a problem on the host it would need to be fixed before it will ever work on the guest. Also see section 11.5.4. Linux host floppy not found of the users guide.

[jadams2337]

Well..... I am concerned that you say the host can read it even though the light stays lite all the time. The light is not supposed to stay lite all the time. Also your profile says OSE other. Can you expand on this? Since IMO there is a problem on the host it would need to be fixed before it will ever work on the guest. Also see section 11.5.4. Linux host floppy not found of the users guide.

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I was not sure how to answer the OSE question. I installed VirtualBox 3.0.2 from a *.deb file, so I guess my OSE should be listed as Debian. I changed that in my profile.

Please ignore what I said about the host being able to read a floppy disk, even with the floppy drive light on. My initial statement was not correct. With the floppy drive light on, Ubuntu cannot read a floppy disk.

Now, back to my problem with the floppy drive...
I was not sure where the problem with the floppy drive is coming from, so to determine whether Windows XP was the cause of the problem, I reinstalled virtual Windows XP into my VirtualBox. This procedure went as follows:

Opened Sun VirtualBox. Windows XP is powered off. No floppy drive light. Windows XP is not installed yet.
Windows XP installation CD is in the host CD drive.

In Sun VirtualBox, Started Windows XP...
The First Run Wizard starts....Type of media for installation: CD/DVD ROM Device, Host Drive is DVDRW IDE 16x (/dev/sr0).

In "Windows XP [Running} - Sun VirtualBox" window, I clicked on Devices > Mount CD/DVD-ROM: Host Drive CD device is mounted.

Clicked on Devices > Mount Floppy: Floppy Drive is not mounted
Clicked on "Host Drive PC Floppy Drive (/dev/fdo)"
Floppy drive is now mounted. Immediately after mounting the floppy drive, the floppy drive light came on.

Clicked on Next > Finish.

Windows XP Installation Started. Floppy Drive light is on, and it stays on throughout the installation process.

Windows XP installation finished. Floppy drive light is still on. (It never went out.)

Now I opened virtual Windows XP. I then ran Windows Explorer, and clicked on "3 1/2 Floppy (A)", I get a message, "Please Insert A Disk Into Drive A". (I get this message, whether there is a disk in the drive or not.)

It appears that While the floppy drive light is on, a disk in the drive is not readable.

In the Windows XP VirtualBox menu, if I clicked on Devices > Unmount Floppy, the floppy drive light goes out. Then if I completely shut down Sun VirtualBox, reboot my computer, and restart Ubuntu, the floppy drive works.

I think that I determined that the problem is not in Windows XP; rather, it appears that this problem is being caused by the VirtualBox program itself.

Do you have a solution to this problem?

Thanks!

jadams2337

[fixedwheel]

Do you have a solution to this problem?

i have no solution but a workaround: from linux host copy the floppy into a file

Code: Select all

dd if=/dev/fd0 of=foobar.img bs=512

and mount this image file to the guest. You can read/write from the guest into the image file, you can write to the real floppy later by exchanging the if= and of= expressions ... and you can make an empty image file with

Code: Select all

dd if=/dev/zero of=foobar.img bs=512 count=2880

(format this after mounting from the guest)

[jadams2337]

To: fixedwheel

Thank you very much for the work around. I typed 'dd if=/dev/fd0 of=foobar.img bs=512' into a Terminal and it worked perfectly. My floppy drive, which can be read by Ubuntu, was imaged, and the foobar.img file was created. In virtual Windows XP I loaded and used this image as my floppy drive. The image file behaves just as if it is a real floppy drive. This was not exactly the solution I was looking for, but at least I can now retrieve data from the floppy drive.

Many thanks for your help with this problem!

jadams2337
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To: Perryg

My post on July 22, at 17:13 was primarily intended as an answer to Perryg's post of July 21, 17:18, so I hope that Perryg read my posted reply.

I have tried a lot of different things, including switching out my floppy drive for another one, but nothing works. No matter what I do, if I run VirtualBox with Windows XP I cannot use my floppy drive if the host floppy drive is mounted. The floppy drive l.e.d. light comes on and it stays on as long as the floppy drive is mounted. The drive cannot be read as long as the light is on.

I am convinced that the problem is caused by something in the VirtualBox program.

Do you have any idea what I should do to solve this problem?

jadams2337

[Perryg]

@jadams2337

Sorry but I have no clue. I have tried to replicate this problem on both of my systems and am unable to. They work as intended. (See Screen Shot) If it were truly a VirtualBox issue I would think I could see it but I can not make it fail. I am to the point that you would need to contact the DEVs on your situation. You would need to post a ticket in bugtracker and this will require you to setup an account there since they are on a different system. DO NOT forget to attach you VBox log file.

Please! If you and the Devs find the problem post the results here in case someone else has this problem. By the way I took this screen shot on my Windows host Ubuntu guest but my Ubuntu host works the same way.

[maw64]

I just notice a box about keeping state, I unchecked the box, and problem resolved

settings, general, other Runtime __ Remember Mounted Media