Ubuntu – “Buffer I/O error on device fd0, logical block 0” error

gnome-terminal

I am using Ubuntu 12.10, today update notification popped up and I updated the system, then it asked for restart, I was doing some stuff so I restarted after ~30 minutes, after restart, Ubuntu GUI was gone, there was no taskbar or unity, I fixed by entering this commands:

sudo apt-get install linux-source 
sudo apt-get install linux-headers-generic
sudo apt-get remove nvidia-current-updates
sudo apt-get install nvidia-current-updates

… these commands fixed almost everything, unity is running, but there's problem when I go in terminal ctrl+alt+F1, before I write anything, many many messages appear, it says "Buffer I/O error on device fd0, logical block 0", what should I do?

Here's image: http://i.imgur.com/JBD5x.jpg

Another thing I noticed is that after few about an hour, messages disappear, this error keeps showing up for first hour roughly.

Best Answer

This is indeed most likely an issue with Ubuntu thinking you have a floppy drive when you do not, and it thinks that because your BIOS is telling it to think that.

My BIOS is an Award Software BIOS; I believe Phoenix is the same company.

  1. At boot of computer, press DEL to enter BIOS setup (this might be a different key, but your post screen probably will tell you what to hit if it's not DEL.)

  2. In the BIOS, find the section that lists different drives (hard drives, floppies, etc). Mine was in Standard CMOS Features.

  3. Select Drive A, and change to None.

  4. Reboot, and your imaginary floppy won't be reported by the BIOS to Ubuntu!

Thank to Rrinzwind, who set me on finding out about disabling the floppy drive, and this forum thread which explained what was happening.

Related Question