USB floppy drives?

Ask Fedora
1

I got a cheap floppy drive to read some old floppies I recently found in a bin. They’re DOS/Windows formatted from the early 90s. Unfortunately when I plug it in I see nothing appear in lsusb, either on my desktop or laptop; both run F43. WIth or without a floppy in it. Doesn’t spin. The drive itself is a TEAC if that matters. I suspect from the manual that it’s supposed to appear as a scsi mass storage drive when there’s a floppy inserted… dmesg -W also shows nothing at all when plugging it in. Tried both a hub, front, and rear ports on the desktop as well as laptop ports. Nothing appears in /proc/scsi/scsi. Anyone dealt with trying to get one of these to work?

2

I’m not sure if that is still around. You might try modprobe floppy.

Excerpt from LWN:

  • The venerable floppy driver has been marked as orphaned, since the last remaining maintainer no longer has a working drive.
3

If you really want to read those floppy disks, you could probably boot an old Fedora Linux live image and your USB floppy drive might work with that.

4

And if you miss software, you could use the archive repository to install older additional packages which are not installed by default.

P.S.
This might be also interesting while having an older kernel, how to manage the disk drive:

5

then it’s probably dead or has a damaged cable.

dmesg output connecting a toshiba usb drive

[162088.633105] usb 3-2.2: new full-speed USB device number 7 using xhci_hcd
[162088.938147] usb 3-2.2: New USB device found, idVendor=0644, idProduct=0000, bcdDevice= 0.00
[162088.938160] usb 3-2.2: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=0
[162088.938164] usb 3-2.2: Product: TEAC FD-05PUB   
[162088.938168] usb 3-2.2: Manufacturer: TEAC    
[162088.948957] usb-storage 3-2.2:1.0: USB Mass Storage device detected
[162088.949384] scsi host0: usb-storage 3-2.2:1.0
[162090.075222] scsi 0:0:0:0: Direct-Access     TEAC     FD-05PUB         1026 PQ: 0 ANSI: 0 CCS
[162090.075718] sd 0:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg0 type 0
[162090.203035] sd 0:0:0:0: Power-on or device reset occurred
[162090.330896] sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Media removed, stopped polling
[162090.338107] sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Attached SCSI removable disk

lsusb -t

[deleted]
/:  Bus 003.Port 001: Dev 001, Class=root_hub, Driver=xhci_hcd/12p, 480M
    |__ Port 001: Dev 002, If 0, Class=Hub, Driver=hub/4p, 480M
        |__ Port 003: Dev 005, If 0, Class=Human Interface Device, Driver=usbhid, 1.5M
        |__ Port 004: Dev 006, If 0, Class=Human Interface Device, Driver=usbhid, 1.5M
    |__ Port 002: Dev 003, If 0, Class=Hub, Driver=hub/2p, 480M
        |__ Port 002: Dev 007, If 0, Class=Mass Storage, Driver=usb-storage, 12M
    |__ Port 010: Dev 004, If 0, Class=Wireless, Driver=btusb, 12M
    |__ Port 010: Dev 004, If 1, Class=Wireless, Driver=btusb, 12M
[deleted]

lsbusb -v -s 003:007

Bus 003 Device 007: ID 0644:0000 TEAC Corp. Floppy
Couldn't open device, some information will be missing
Negotiated speed: Full Speed (12Mbps)
Device Descriptor:
  bLength                18
  bDescriptorType         1
  bcdUSB               1.10
  bDeviceClass            0 [unknown]
  bDeviceSubClass         0 [unknown]
  bDeviceProtocol         0 
  bMaxPacketSize0         8
  idVendor           0x0644 TEAC Corp.
  idProduct          0x0000 Floppy
  bcdDevice            0.00
  iManufacturer           1 TEAC    
  iProduct                2 TEAC FD-05PUB   
  iSerial                 0 
  bNumConfigurations      1
  Configuration Descriptor:
    bLength                 9
    bDescriptorType         2
    wTotalLength       0x0027
    bNumInterfaces          1
    bConfigurationValue     1
    iConfiguration          0 
    bmAttributes         0x80
      (Bus Powered)
    MaxPower              500mA
    Interface Descriptor:
      bLength                 9
      bDescriptorType         4
      bInterfaceNumber        0
      bAlternateSetting       0
      bNumEndpoints           3
      bInterfaceClass         8 Mass Storage
      bInterfaceSubClass      4 Floppy (UFI)
      bInterfaceProtocol      0 Control/Bulk/Interrupt
      iInterface              0 
      Endpoint Descriptor:
        bLength                 7
        bDescriptorType         5
        bEndpointAddress     0x81  EP 1 IN
        bmAttributes            2
          Transfer Type            Bulk
          Synch Type               None
          Usage Type               Data
        wMaxPacketSize     0x0040  1x 64 bytes
        bInterval               0
      Endpoint Descriptor:
        bLength                 7
        bDescriptorType         5
        bEndpointAddress     0x02  EP 2 OUT
        bmAttributes            2
          Transfer Type            Bulk
          Synch Type               None
          Usage Type               Data
        wMaxPacketSize     0x0040  1x 64 bytes
        bInterval               0
      Endpoint Descriptor:
        bLength                 7
        bDescriptorType         5
        bEndpointAddress     0x83  EP 3 IN
        bmAttributes            3
          Transfer Type            Interrupt
          Synch Type               None
          Usage Type               Data
        wMaxPacketSize     0x0002  1x 2 bytes
        bInterval             255

EDIT: replaced wrong lsusb -v -s with the correct one

6

Thanks for the output - I imagine mine should be similar. Even if it doesn’t enumerate and is quarantined and permanently suspended or ignore I’d imagine dmesg and lsusb should mention something… I’ll exchange it.

7

Got the replacement… This one works fine. With a floppy inserted it shows up in lsusb, /proc/scsi/scsi, mounts, and appears as “Floppy Disk” as a removable device in Dolphin (KDE 6).

So, yeah, it was borked out of the box.