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## 4.6.2 Using floppies as filesystems

You can create a filesystem on a floppy just as you would on a hard drive partition. For example,

`# mke2fs /dev/fd0 1440`

creates a filesystem on the floppy in `/dev/fd0`. The size of the filesystem must correspond to the size of the floppy. High-density 3.5" disks are 1.44 megabytes, or 1440 blocks, in size. High-density 5.25" disks are 1200 blocks.

In order to access the floppy, you must mount the filesystem contained on it. The command

`# mount -t ext2 /dev/fd0 /mnt`

will mount the floppy in `/dev/fd0` on the directory `/mnt`. Now, all of the files on the floppy will appear under `/mnt` on your drive. The ```-t ext2`'' specifies an ext2fs filesystem type. If you created another type of filesystem on the floppy, you'll need to specify its type to the `mount` command.

The ``mount point'' (the directory where you're mounting the filesystem) needs to exist when you use the `mount` command. If it doesn't exist, simply create it with `mkdir`.

See Section 4.8 for more information on filesystems, mounting, and mount points.

Note that any I/O to the floppy is buffered just as hard disk I/O is. If you change data on the floppy, you may not see the drive light come on until the kernel flushes its I/O buffers. It's important that you not remove a floppy before you unmount it; this can be done with the command

`# umount /dev/fd0`

Do not simply switch floppies as you would on an MS-DOS system; whenever you change floppies, `umount` the first one and `mount` the next.

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