A/ drive is read only?

[Fobos11]

For some reason I keep getting an error message saying that the A/ drive is write protected and read only. I Have a linux refferance book, But it does not offer me any solutions. My current resources are limited due to the fact that I am away from the U.S.A. for an extended period of time. So that book is all I have for rite now. Any extra info you may have to offer would be great useful. Thankyou all for your patience.


Fobos11

P.S. I did check the write protect tab on the disk. Still no joy!

[mdwatts]

When do you get the message the the diskette is readonly? During manual mounting of the device?

Could you please post the contents of /etc/fstab.

[andycrofts]

..I guess is where you want to be looking first.
Publish it here.
-Andy

(Dammit, Mike - you're too quick!!! :D )

[DMR]

When/where exactly are you getting the error message concerning the floppy being write-protected?

It would help if you told us which distro and version of Linux you use.

Also, have you tried mounting/accessing floppies when logged in as root as opposed to a normal user?

[mdwatts]

Originally posted by andycrofts

(Dammit, Mike - you're too quick!!! :D )

:D

I moved this over from /dev/random first, answered a couple of other questions before posting here and I still beat you. :p

[Artimus]

O_o I have NEVER seen a distro call the floppy drive A\...

[Fobos11]

Ok, first let me say that I am brand new to liux. If I use nomenclature that is more appropiate for windows than I am stll adjusting to linux nomenclature.

So, Here is the deal now. I am currently using the SuSE 8.0 edition and working through the kde gui. I had ended up reloading the linux os and a copy of win 2000, so I guess I have a dual boot system. anyway, After I was done reloading all of my software and making the appropiate adjustments I went to access a .jpg off of the fd0 drive (I think thats rite, fd0 ?) and it gave me an error message saying that it was not mountable. I wish i could remember the exact error message. My computer is not currently online so I would not be able to chat directly. This is how i will have to do it for now.

I would also like to know if there are any shell tutors that i could maybe print and try out, so I can learn more. I know that this a learning thing and will probably take a little time to become self serving. Please bare with me, and thank you all for the replies.

[andycrofts]

Re. Shell reference.

What a coincidence that today I posted this on this thread...
http://www.justlinux.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=110891
Fill your boots!:p
-Andy

[DMR]

Originally posted by Fobos11
I went to access a .jpg off of the fd0 drive (I think thats rite, fd0 ?) and it gave me an error message saying that it was not mountable. Were you trying to do this while logged in as a normal user (as opposed to root)?
Traditionally, removable media such as floppies and CD-ROMs can only be mounted and unmounted by root for security reasons.

This behavior is defined in your /etc/fstab file, and it can be changed. fstab (like most configuration files in Linux) is just a plain-text file, and can be modified with any text editing program. If you alter the floppy's entry to the following, all users will be able to mount/unmount it:

/dev/fd0 /mnt/floppy auto noauto,users 0 0

The above assumes that you use /mnt/floppy as the directory where you mount the floppy. If your system uses a different mount point, obviously replace /mnt/floppy with the appropriate directory.