FAQ Policies
FAQ : Using various devices in the labs

Using Various Devices/Drives on a Lab Workstation

Contents:



The workstations bought for the student laboratories are usually not fully spec'd (they do not have burners, for instance) but they still have several drives that students can access.

CD-ROM

A data CD has to be mounted as a filesystem before it can be read. Usually only root can mount a new device on a *nix computer, so CSG has written a Priv Script to handle this for non-root users. Insert the CD-ROM and type priv cdrom mount. You should now be able to read the CD's contents at /cdrom. This command will only work for the person logged into the console of the computer and only for the CD-ROM drive on that computer.

When you have finished with the CD, type priv cdrom umount, to unmount the filesystem, and then eject to eject the disc.


Floppy

Only the Dell machines have floppy drives. Only the Dell machines have floppy drives.
There is a set of commands collectively known as mtools that enable you to read and write to MS-DOS (Windows) floppy disks. The floppy disk drive is :a and the most common operations are:
  • mdir - list the files on the floppy
  • mcopy a:/file file.txt - copy a file from the floppy to ./file.txt
  • mcopy file.txt a:/file - copy ./file.txt to the floppy
  • mdel a:/file - delete file from the floppy
  • mformat a: - format the floppy
If you happen to have a linux floppy, you can try mount /floppy. Nobody's ever asked us to make this work, so no guarantees...


USB

USB keys need to be mounted in a similar fashion to CD-ROMs, using the priv usb command. See the USB Keys FAQ for more information.
Tags for this article: cdrom floppy labs USB