Gfloppy will not successfully format a completely blank disk

Bug #50685 reported by SFS
6
This bug affects 1 person
Affects Status Importance Assigned to Milestone
gnome-utils
Expired
Medium
gnome-utils (Ubuntu)
Invalid
Low
Ubuntu Desktop Bugs

Bug Description

I have found that you cannot format a completely blank disk (one erased with a magnet) using Gfloppy or fdformat unless you use:

setfdprm -p /dev/fd0 1440/1440 and then format with Gfloppy.

I am surprised that the floppy density selection in Gfloppy doesn't set these parameters for you.

If I run the setfdprm -p /dev/fd0 1440/1440 command just before formatting in Gfloppy, everything works fine.

In other words, Linux pukes on a floppy that does not already have a recognizable file system unless you run setfdprm just before the format. Gfloppy should set this the floppy parameters based on the density chosen.

Revision history for this message
SFS (sortfloorsolutions) wrote :

How long does it take to triage a bug? Is twenty days not enough?

Is there something I can do to help?

Revision history for this message
Sebastien Bacher (seb128) wrote :

we have had a busy month, get hundred of new bugs a week for only few people working on them and having to catch up with everything which happened to Debian and upstream while we were working on dapper, so right it can take some weeks for minor issues like that one

Revision history for this message
Sebastien Bacher (seb128) wrote :

you are welcome to send patches, triage bugs, forward upstream bugs to upstream, etc if you want to make the job easier and help the desktop team to catch up with the bugs lag

Revision history for this message
SFS (sortfloorsolutions) wrote :

How do I triage my own bugs or forward them upstream? It sounds like something a salmon should know by instinct, but I have no clue.

BTW - This is not minor for anyone formatting a floppy of questionable origin (which all floppies are).

Revision history for this message
Daniel Holbach (dholbach) wrote :

I forwarded it to the upstream developers: http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=348027

Changed in gnome-utils:
assignee: nobody → desktop-bugs
Changed in gnome-utils:
status: Unknown → Unconfirmed
Changed in gnome-utils:
importance: Untriaged → Medium
status: Unconfirmed → Confirmed
Revision history for this message
SFS (sortfloorsolutions) wrote :

Still present in Gutsy.

Changed in gnome-utils:
importance: Medium → Low
status: Confirmed → Triaged
Revision history for this message
SFS (sortfloorsolutions) wrote :

Still present in Jaunty.

Revision history for this message
Omar Shami (bigfox) wrote :

I can confirm this bug in Jaunty.

I cannot format floppies that have been erased by a magnet.

setfdprm -p /dev/fd0 1440/1440 does fix the problem, but it must by done on every floppy that is inserted.

Revision history for this message
Martin Mai (mrkanister-deactivatedaccount-deactivatedaccount) wrote :
Changed in gnome-utils (Ubuntu):
status: Triaged → Invalid
Changed in gnome-utils:
importance: Unknown → Medium
status: New → Expired
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