Linux copy data from a floppy to hard disk

Q. How do I copy files from a floppy disk to my hard disk. I am using a 1.44 MB floppy.

A. /dev/fd0 is your first floppy disk drive (/dev/fd1 is second and so on) under Linux. You need to use normal mount command. All files accessible in a Unix system are arranged in one big tree, the file hierarchy, rooted at /. These files can be spread out over several devices. The mount command serves to attach the file system found on some device to the big file tree.

a) First, login as root user

b) If you want to use MS-DOS or MS-Windows based fat file system (formatted floppy disk) type the following command:

# mkdir -p /mnt/floppy
# mount -t vfat /dev/fd0 /mnt/floppy

c) To access floppy disk go to /mnt/floppy directory:

# cd /mnt/floppy

d) Now use other commands such as ls, cp, mv and other commands to copy/move files.
e) To unmount (remove disk) floppy type command:

# sync
# cd /
# umount /mnt/floppy

Now you can remove floppy from disk drive.

To mount ext3/ext2 based floppy just use mount command without â€“t vfat option:

# mount /dev/fd0 /mnt/floppy