# Floppy drive not working under FreeBSD 8.2



## gabam (Jul 25, 2011)

Hi friends,

I am using VirtualBox version 4.1, Windows vista 32 bit as a host, and FreeBSD 8.2 as a guest. I have enabled floppy drive in the motherboard settings, placed a floppy image containing data. However, I cannot access that data, there seems to be something wrong with the configuration of the floppy drive under FreeBSD.
There is no "fd0" file under /dev. I only see two files starting with f under /dev. fd(directory) and fido. The fd directory contains three character special files "0,1,2".
When I try execute the command
[cmd=]mount -t vfat /dev/fd/0 /mnt[/cmd] it says operation not supported by device.
as well as
[cmd=]mount -t msdos /dev/fd/0 /mnt[/cmd]
The output of dmesg about the floppy drive is

```
fdc0: <floppy drive controller> port 0x3f0-0x3f5,0x3f7 irq 6 drq 2 on acpi0
fdc0: does not respond
device_attach: fdc0 attach returned 6
```
I had the same problem under linux and managed to solve it by running the command
[cmd=]modprobe floppy[/cmd] which loaded the floppy drive into kernel.
The floppy drive also works alright under Windows guest
So how can I load the floppy drive into the FreeBSD kernel, looking forward to your kind replies!
Thanks in advance!


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## fonz (Jul 25, 2011)

gabam said:
			
		

> So how can I load the floppy drive into the freebsd kernel, looking forward to your kind replies!


Try the following manually (as root): `# kldload fdc`
If that helps, add the line 
	
	



```
fdc_load="YES"
```
to /boot/loader.conf.

Fonz


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## gabam (Jul 26, 2011)

fonz said:
			
		

> Try the following manually (as root): `# kldload fdc`
> If that helps, add the line
> 
> 
> ...


It didn't work, it says that the module is already there. I also added the line 
	
	



```
fdc_load="YES"
```
 in loader.conf. Any more suggestions!


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## SirDice (Jul 26, 2011)

fdc(4) is already part of GENERIC so there's no need to load it.


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## ikreos (Jul 26, 2011)

Is the floppy cable plugged in the correct orientation?


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## fonz (Jul 26, 2011)

gabam said:
			
		

> It didn't work, it says that the module is already there.


Does your floppy drive happen to use different (i.e. other than usual) parameters such as IRQ, DRQ, port address etc? This information can probably be found in your BIOS. Does the drive have changeline support?

Fonz


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## ske (Apr 7, 2016)

I'm still having the same symptoms when trying to access a virtual floppy with FreeBSD 10.3 and VirtualBox 5.0.16 as described in the first message of this thread by gabam, 5 years later. Apparently nothing has improved.

I noticed gabam received a more detailed answer in the VirtualBox forum, saying that the fdc driver of FreeBSD can't handle too quick floppy interrupts from VirtualBox when reading. Maybe someone should look into this for FreeBSD?
https://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=43288


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