Recognizing a floppy

Jamesapp · Post by **Jamesapp** » 12. Jan 2011, 21:37

Hello,
How do I get my os to recognize a floppy drive?

I have an external USB floppy connected to a laptop running Mac os x. And I have freedos installed, but when I get to the command line and type a: my floppy isn't recognized? How can I get freedos to recognize my floppy drive?

Any help, or info would be great...

Post by **Perryg** » 12. Jan 2011, 22:07

I don't know if freedos supports USB devices by default. You should see about that first.

Post by **mpack** » 13. Jan 2011, 17:12

Jamesapp wrote:but when I get to the command line and type a: my floppy isn't recognized?

The floppy is connected to your host PC, not the virtual PC, so the virtual PC can't access it normally (just like it can't access any other host drive). If you want to associate a virtual floppy drive with a physical (host) floppy drive then you need to create that association in the VMs settings. I'm not a Mac user so I can't tell you how floppy (or any other) drives are identified there.

Post by **ChipMcK** » 13. Jan 2011, 18:57

Before VB will attach an USB device, you need to tell VB that it is a resource to be monitored.
Settings for the virtual machine: Create an USBFilter for the USB device while the virtual machine is shutdown.
Then the device should be selectable when the virtual machine is running.

Post by **Perryg** » 13. Jan 2011, 19:14

As I said unless you can overcome this issue I don't know you can make this happen.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FreeDOS

So far there is no USB driver support inside the FreeDOS project,

Unless there is some way to emulate a real floppy on the MAC side. That might work. I have tried this on Windows and Linux and never got it to work in FreeDOS.

Post by **mpack** » 14. Jan 2011, 11:53

Guys... unless I've missed something then the USB thing is a red herring. USB is how it connects to the host, not necessarily how it connects to the guest. While you could certainly connect it to some guests using USB, IMHO it's easier just to connect to it like any other host floppy drive. Or are you saying that Mac hosts don't recognize removable USB floppy drives?

Post by **ChipMcK** » 14. Jan 2011, 12:21

mpack wrote:Guys... unless I've missed something then the USB thing is a red herring. USB is how it connects to the host, not necessarily how it connects to the guest. While you could certainly connect it to some guests using USB, IMHO it's easier just to connect to it like any other host floppy drive. Or are you saying that Mac hosts don't recognize removable USB floppy drives?

An Apple computer does not have a built-in floppy drive. How does one make the connection from emulation with images to physical media on USB?

Post by **mpack** » 14. Jan 2011, 15:46

ChipMcK wrote:An Apple computer does not have a built-in floppy drive

Most modern Windows PCs don't have them either. I'm not sure what your question is about: once the floppy is connected to the host you just choose host drive X in the VM floppy settings. X would be "A:" or "B:" on Windows hosts, but like I said before I don't know how a Mac hosts identifies drives since I'm not a Mac user.

Post by **ChipMcK** » 14. Jan 2011, 18:55

choose host drive X in the VM floppy settings

But the choice is an image, not drive, in the Storage section.

Post by **mpack** » 15. Jan 2011, 11:52

ChipMcK wrote:
choose host drive X in the VM floppy settings
But the choice is an image, not drive, in the Storage section.

Well, first things first. (1) Can someone confirm whether or not a Mac host supports external floppy drives at all? (with or without drivers). (2) On a Windows host the VBox Storage selection gives you a pulldown list which includes all physical floppy drives, plus a button beside it to select a floppy image instead. Is this not what you get on a Mac?

Post by **ChipMcK** » 15. Jan 2011, 12:42

1) a Mac Host supports USB floppy drives
2) On Mac host, Storage floppy controller gives choice of two (2) virtual floppies
3) On Mac host, an image may be mounted/attached to a virtual floppy

My question is "on a Mac host how do I connect the virtual floppy to the real USB floppy?"

Post by **fixedwheel** » 15. Jan 2011, 14:17

mpack wrote:(2) On a Windows host the VBox Storage selection gives you a pulldown list which includes all physical floppy drives, plus a button beside it to select a floppy image instead. Is this not what you get on a Mac?

don't know about Mac, but maybe this helps to sort that out
a) Linux host with legacy floppy drive: pulldown list includes floppy drive
b) Linux host with USB floppy drive: pulldown list without floppy drive

Post by **mpack** » 15. Jan 2011, 15:13

fixedwheel wrote:b) Linux host with USB floppy drive: pulldown list without floppy drive

Sounds like drive enumeration on Linux doesn't work the way I'd expect. It's possible you could still connect the drive manually in that case, by editing the xml.

Post by **ChipMcK** » 15. Jan 2011, 15:43

Mac host do not have legacy floppy drives.

editing the xml

Assuming the one for the virtual machine.

Post by **fixedwheel** » 15. Jan 2011, 19:42

ChipMcK wrote:Mac host do not have legacy floppy drives.

i know about
google tells me Mac have dd command?

Code: Select all

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

replace /dev/fd0 by the Mac device name of your USB floppy and when ready attach foobar.img to the guest.
bs=512 is optional only to speed things up - and exchange if= and of= to write back to physical medium

@mpack i have access to the USB floppy next monday at work

virtualbox.org

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