virtual: 0.919
performance: 0.865
user-level: 0.850
x86: 0.848
semantic: 0.834
mistranslation: 0.821
architecture: 0.780
device: 0.733
graphic: 0.659
permissions: 0.653
peripherals: 0.650
ppc: 0.650
PID: 0.640
debug: 0.637
network: 0.613
register: 0.604
kernel: 0.585
assembly: 0.557
socket: 0.547
hypervisor: 0.543
i386: 0.540
vnc: 0.520
KVM: 0.501
boot: 0.474
risc-v: 0.471
VMM: 0.459
files: 0.434
arm: 0.394
TCG: 0.340

Qemu fails on -fda /dev/fd0 when no medium is present

# qemu-system-x86_64 --version
QEMU emulator version 1.0 (qemu-kvm-1.0), Copyright (c) 2003-2008 Fabrice Bellard

# qemu-system-x86_64 -fda /dev/fd0
qemu-system-x86_64: -fda /dev/fd0: could not open disk image /dev/fd0: No such device or address

Starting with a medium (floppy disk) inserted, then removing or changing the medium works fine.

Is this still an issue with the latest version of QEMU (currently v2.10), or could we close this ticket nowadays?

Sorry, it has been more than five years and I don't have a system with a floppy disk to test anymore.

Best,
Herbert

Likely the bug as reported still exists, because this attempts to use the disk image, not the floppy drive as a whole. If there's no floppy inserted, there's no disk image to use. Later versions of QEMU even explicitly remove support for pass-through floppy disks.

Basically, what you want to do is to create a normal emulated floppy drive in QEMU, and then use the block device add commands to use the /dev/fd0 as a media which can then be virtually inserted into the virtual floppy device.

QEMU does not have support for doing pass-through of the floppy controller / drive itself presently. (Uh, unless you have a PCI floppy controller or something, but... you probably don't!)

We can close this bug as WONTFIX, essentially.