Hello, it seems that superformat has problems with the device file system devfs. There the floppy device files all live under /dev/floppy. With superformat this leeds to problems like the following: mnemaxa:~# strace superformat /dev/floppy/1h1200 execve("/usr/bin/superformat", ["superformat", "/dev/floppy/1h1200"], [/* 18 vars */]) = 0 uname({sys="Linux", node="mnemaxa", ...}) = 0 ..... open("/dev/floppy/1h1200", O_RDWR|O_NONBLOCK|O_EXCL) = 3 fstat64(0x3, 0xbfffc7bc) = 0 ioctl(3, FDRESET, 0x1) = 0 ioctl(3, FDGETDRVPRM, 0xbfffd2e4) = 0 open("/etc/driveprm", O_RDONLY) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory) ioctl(3, FDGETPRM, 0xbfffd254) = 0 close(3) = 0 open("/dev/fd1", O_RDWR|O_NONBLOCK|O_EXCL) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory) write(2, "open: No such file or directory\n", 32open: No such file or directory ) = 32 _exit(1) = ? The user tries to format /dev/floppy/1h1200, but superformat changes this to the non-existent /dev/fd1. I think that the following code in "superformat.c" (from fdutils-5.4-20020222) is responsible for this: Starting at line 734: /* this is not a generic format device. Close it, * and open the proper device instead */ if(argc == 0) ioctl(fd[0].fd, FDGETPRM, &geometry); have_geom = 1; close(fd[0].fd); snprintf(drivename,9,"/dev/fd%d", fd[0].drive); fd[0].name = drivename; I think it would help to change this as follows: 1) Check for the existence of /dev/.devfsd 2) If it exists (devfs is used), use "/dev/floppy/%d" as the device name. 3) If .devfsd does not exist, proceed as in the code sniplet above. I hope this helps, Jochen -- http://www.mathematik.uni-kl.de/~wwwstoch/voss/