Link to home
Start Free TrialLog in
Avatar of moterk
moterk

asked on

Files disappear after using floppy in Windows

When we are logged in as anyone other than the root, save a file to the floppy, and bring it to a Windows machine, the file is not there.  Then, when we put it back into the Linux machine, the file does not show up there either.  How do we fix this?
Avatar of MFCRich
MFCRich

Do you unmount the floppy before you remove it from the drive?

> umount /mnt/floppy

Assuming it is mounted on /mnt/floppy
Avatar of moterk

ASKER

We are using the gnome with x-windows it should automatically unmount.  And we do nothing differently as the root user, but for the root user it works perfectly
did you get error messages?
Sound like ordinary users have no permission to the floppy device.
Avatar of moterk

ASKER

All users are in the user group and have rights to the floppy.  It gives no error when the file is moved or copied onto it.  It just is not there when the floppy is stuck into a Windows machine.  The floppy is formated for windows.  If we save something from the windows machine to the floppy, Linux reads it fine.  We have tried more then one windows machine to see if it was machine dependant.
ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION
Avatar of ahoffmann
ahoffmann
Flag of Germany image

Link to home
membership
This solution is only available to members.
To access this solution, you must be a member of Experts Exchange.
Start Free Trial
when you a copying the file to the floppy make sure that u dont copy it with the permissions. as windows does dont have permission system. on  the copy tab that appears in gnome, go to advanced options and uncheck "Preserve file Attributes".
Avatar of moterk

ASKER

fauzdar, I believe the Linux file security attributes can not be stored on a non ext partition.

ahoffmann, I tried using sync in fstab a couple days ago and it did not work so I removed it.  Then yesterday before I submitted this question I found a suggestion on the internet.  The suggestion was to assign the floppy mount rights to a certain group and put all of my users into that group.  I tried that and it did not work.  Then after reading your suggestion about sync, I tried sync in fstab again.  And sync in combination with the group fix I tried earlier fixes the problem.

Should I give the points to you or MFCRich?
I don't mind. But I think the solution you have choosen is closer to ahoffmann's.
> And sync in combination with the group ..
nice that you got a working solution.
Even I meant /bin/sync rather than the fstab option ;-)

So experts vote for my suggestion --thanks-- I'd give another one:
    use mcopy instead of cp
mcopy does not need a mounted floppy (does mount on the fly), and works with (V)FAT floppies directly. You don't need to take care about syncing.