Hello Jan,

HD>> Do you know if it is possible to get that USB Floppy disk drive working
HD>> at a  Raspberry Pi?,

JP> Interesting question.
JP> Took it, removed the dust from it, and plugged it in the raspi running
JP> the webserver.
JP> Expected it to crash (How much power does it draw?), but:

That was/is also my point of interest.
May be you can measure what it draws in Amps.?

I also digged out my Iomega 3,5" 1,44 MB USB2-Floppy diskdrive.
This afternoon I got it working, and could even write a new Test directory
and a large textfile in it.
This evening/night It dont want to work again, at the first attempts.
I unplugged everything, including RJ45 EtherNet Cable, and only left the USB
dongle for wireless keyboard and mouse and the USB-floppy drive, and now it
works when plugged in into the bottum ports as close to the Pi3B print.
I think a powered USB2 hub shall be necessarry for the power hunger of this
floppydrive.

JP> root@raspberrypi:~# dmesg

What a long list does that command "dmesg" on Raspbian Stretch gives to me.

JP> Now to find a floppy..

JP> Found some floppy with Linux filesystem
JP> root@raspberrypi:~# fdisk /dev/sda
JP> You will not be able to write the partition table.
JP> fdisk: unable to read /dev/sda: Invalid argument
JP> no go
JP> lots of noises from the drive trying, disk is write protected it seems..

Hm.
Yould better try a new emty floppy disk.
I even have some new unused box of floppy disks.

JP> Let's see what we got from the boot sector etc:
JP> root@raspberrypi:~# hexedit q1

He, were did you get that "hexedit" from?
It did not work at mij Raspbian Stretch command line prompt.
I only installed "Jeex", but am not familiair with it.

JP> YES!!! lots of zeros and some data!

Ofcourse ;-).

JP> Other disk, old write protected backup ext2 format
JP> root@raspberrypi:~# fdisk /dev/sda
JP> You will not be able to write the partition table.
JP> Device contains neither a valid DOS partition table, nor Sun, SGI or OSF
JP> disklabel
JP> Building a new DOS disklabel with disk identifier 0x72867184.
JP> Changes will remain in memory only, until you decide to write them.
JP> After that, of course, the previous content won't be recoverable.
JP> Warning: invalid flag 0x0000 of partition table 4 will be corrected by
JP> w(rite)

Yopu really did not have a floppy disk with some free space to write on?

JP> Command (m for help): p

What does P do?

JP> Still no sign of sda1, lemme see if I can mount it
JP> root@raspberrypi:~# mkdir /mnt/sda1
JP> root@raspberrypi:~# mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/sda1
JP> mount: special device /dev/sda1 does not exist

Strange.

JP> Nope

JP> root@raspberrypi:~# mount /dev/sda /mnt/sda1
JP> mount: block device /dev/sda is write-protected, mounting read-only
JP> AHA!!!

So, use a new floppy disk.

JP> 't works

He, he ;-)

JP> I am not going to write to any of these disks, and have no free 3.5 inch
JP> disk.

Strange. It is a good idea to always have some media with free space.
You never know what comes on your way you want to store rapidly.
So always have some free floppy's, USB-sticks and microSDcards etc..
Of course you could make an image of that floppy and write that to another
medium with enough free space to store that image, i.e. harddisk.
Then you can testwrite that floppy and after that write back that backupped
image you earlier made.

JP> So it works, write should work too on a not write protected disk.
JP> Same for other filesystems.

Yes.

JP> What surprises me, is that the rapi wallwart (voeding in Dutch) does not
JP> go through its knees.
JP> Must take some current that drive motor seeking back and forward.

The supply power is not the problem, what the Pi lets through does.
It is NOT the 4 x 0.5 Amps total for each USB2.0 ports, you would expect.

Even if you have the original 2.5 Amps power supply, and the Pi takes 0.5 A
from it, there are NOT 2.0 Amps available for USB devices! ;-(.
So a powered USB hub is needed for this USB2 floppy device.

Henri.

---