How to Copy or Move Information to a Diskette

1. Make sure the diskette is not write-protected.

   On both 3.5-inch and 5.25 inch diskettes, write-protection is controlled by a small tab in either the lower left or lower right corner. If you can see through the square hole behind the tab, the diskette is write-protected. If the hole is covered by the tab, the diskette is write-enabled.

2. Make sure the diskette is formatted and mounted.

   $ ls /floppy floppy0 diskette-name

   If the diskette is properly formatted and mounted, its name and the symbolic link, floppy0, will appear under /floppy.

   If nothing appears under the /floppy directory, the diskette is not mounted. See "How to Load a Diskette". The diskette might also need to be formatted. See "How to Format a UFS Diskette" or "How to Format a DOS Diskette".

3. Move or copy the files or directories.

   To ...	Use ...
   Copy a file	cp
   Copy a directory	cp -r
   Move a file or directory	mv

4. Verify a move or copy operation by using the ls command.

Examples--Copying or Moving Information to a Diskette

The first example, below, moves a file (readme.doc) from the current directory to the diskette loaded into the first floppy drive (indicated by /floppy/floppy0). The second example copies a file (readme2.doc) from the current directory to the diskette loaded into the second floppy drive (indicated by /floppy/floppy1). The third example copies a directory (morefiles) and its contents from the /home/smith/directory to the diskette loaded into the first floppy drive.

$ mv readme.doc /floppy/floppy0
$ cp readme2.doc /floppy/floppy1
$ cp -r /home/smith/morefiles /floppy/floppy0