Internal floppy drive connected via USB constantly being in use when no floppy disks are inserted

[TheKitsuneWithATie]

I'm currently running under Linux Mint 17.3 Cinnamon 64-bit.

I'm trying to mount a 3.5'' 1.44MB floppy disk drive in a modern computer via a 34 pins floppy disk drive connector to external male USB adapter. The adapter name shown in the BIOS/UEFI is TEAC USB UF000x, the name shown by udisks --show-info is TEACV0.0.

The floppy drive works well itself, it can read and write floppy disks.

But some process seem to constantly "check" the floppy disk drive as its usage LED indicator is always on even if no floppy disks are inserted. And the floppy disk drive's magnetic head seems to move as it does a short noise every second or so when no floppy disks are inserted. This happens all the time when no floppy disks are inserted in the floppy disk drive. This also occurs on the 3 (three) floppy disk drives I connected via the adapter.

This should not happen. When no floppy disks are inserted the usage LED indicator of the floppy disk drive should be off, and the magnetic head shouldn't move if no floppy disks are inserted in the floppy disk drive.

So there must be a process/processes that sends requests to the floppy disk drive periodically (maybe to check if a floppy disk is inserted, or maybe because it is connected via USB and that the process/processes thinks it must behave like any other USB devices). I didn't find which process/processes does that.

Here are the things I tried and that failed to fix the problem:
- Mount the floppy disk drive in the fstab file, it mounts the drive correctly, but doesn't fix the problem;
- Reset the floppy disk drive with fdutils, but fdutils doesn't recognise the device as a floppy disk drive as it is connected via USB;
- Enable the floppy kernel module with the command "sudo modprobe floppy", but it throws the error "could not insert 'floppy': No such device";
- Forcing the enabling of the kernel floppy module with the command "sudo modprobe -f floppy", but it throws the error "could not insert 'floppy': Exec format error";
- Apply the fix given at this page: http://www.securitybeacon.com/?p=1110, but it didn't work.

My guess is that it has to do with udisks or another process probing the floppy disk drive constantly. How can I fix this please? Thank you in advance.

Also, in case of need, here are my computer's specifications:

- Motherboard: Asus P8Z77-V Pro/Thunderbolt
- Processor: Intel Core i5-3570K
- RAM: 8 Gb
- Operating System: Linux Mint 17.3 Cinnamon 64-bit;
- Floppy Drive: Alps Electric Co., LTD. DF354H(121G) (Not sure if that's the model reference);
- Floppy Drive USB Adaptater: TEAC USB UF000x (This is the how it's named in the BIOS/UEFI) (34pin floppy connector to USB adapter cable).

P.S:
Note that as the floppy drive is connected via USB, it is not /dev/fd0, it's at /dev/sd*.

[saxbophone (saxbophone)]

This also affects me, with exactly the same behaviour observed. I am currently running Ubuntu 16.04 —perhaps this is a wider Debian issue?

[TheKitsuneWithATie (leodalecki)]

Hi Joshua Saxby, I made a bash script that switches on or off the floppy disk drive, ensuring that it's not probed when unused. Send me a mail via my profile page and I'll send you the script and explain you how it works. This by no way a permanent fix, but it should avoid you having your floppy disk drive constantly probed.

[saxbophone (saxbophone)]

Aha! That's good to know, thanks very much I'll do that.

[Brian Burns (aundae)]

I also have this problem and have not been able to find a solution. Interestingly, I have this problem on Ubuntu 17.10, Debian 9, and in macOS for several versions. The only OS where the drive does not exhibit this behavior is Windows (7 and 10).

[P_Aleksandrov (petr-aleksandrov)]

It seems that I also have encountered with the same bug: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/udisks2/+bug/1456338.
If I boot with init=/bin/bash, the USB floppy is not constantly running. Is it possible that systemd have this bug?

[Frédéric V. (vfrederix)]

I found a partial workaround to this problem:

The solution has been tested under Ubuntu 14.04 and should work also on more recent versions of Ubuntu.

This solution works only for the cheap Teac USB floppy controllers (for other usb controllers you will maybe have to adapt the solution yourself):

In the terminal simply type lsscsi (if it's not installed type sudo apt-get install lsscsi):

Output: [6:0:0:0] disk TEAC USB UF000x 0.00

If you don't see TEAC and USB UF000x when the floppy drive is connected, this solution is not for you.

Create this file with administrative privileges : /etc/udev/rules.d/00-teacfloppy.rules

Paste in this line:

ACTION=="add", SUBSYSTEM=="block", ATTR{removable}=="1", ATTRS{idVendor}=="0644", ATTRS{idProduct}=="0000", ATTR{events_poll_msecs}="-1"

Save and reboot.

The drive will seek for a few seconds then the motor will quickly stop.

[Flamekebab (flamekebab)]

@vfrederix I've just tested that solution on Ubuntu 20.10 and it doesn't seem to have any effect. Exactly the same lsscsi output so I know we're dealing with the same disk controller.

Are you sure it still works?

[Keyesmic (keyesmic)]

Not on Mint, but I've found that setting "events_poll_msecs" to 0 does the trick (instead of -1).

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[Alexander Vinbæk Strand (alexstrand7-o)]

It was the same problem on Ubuntu and Pop! OS but I can confirm that the solution is in comment #8, so it is working now.