/dev/fd0 is not a valid block device

[Jeff Vian]

Rick Stevens wrote:

> Jeff Vian wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> James Kosin wrote:
>>
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>>>
>>> Rick Stevens wrote:
>>> <<-- snip -->>
>>>
>>> If you use fdformat to format the floppy in Linux, you still need to 
>>> use
>>> mkfs to build a file system on the floppy.  Otherwise, you will still
>>> get this error, even after the format.
>>>
>>> /dev/fd0 is only permitted if fdformat knows the format already or can
>>> find it out from the floppy.
>>>
>>> You can use mount /mnt/floppy to try again.  Or better still, get a 
>>> disk
>>> you know is good... and try mounting that.
>>>
>> If you use "/sbin/mkdosfs /dev/fd0" it will format the floppy as a 
>> dos filesystem and check the lowlevel format at the same time. Use of 
>> "/bin/fdformat" does the lowlevel format only and from the man page 
>> it does require the use of "/dev/fd0H1440" or equivalent in order to 
>> know how to do that format.
>>
>> However, if that disk has been used for some things (like making a 
>> linux boot disk) it cannot be reformatted using mkdosfs and would 
>> have to be reformatted with fdformat first.
>>
>> Bottom line -  to do the low level format use fdformat,   -- to make 
>> the usable format use mkdosfs.
>
>
> "mformat a:" will also do a vfat format of a floppy.

right,  among others.
    mkfs < optios>
    mkfs.msdos <blah>
    etc.

The wonders of having 100 ways to do the same thing :-)