Messages log contains "floppy0: disk absent or changed during operation"

Details

  • A virtual machine is powered on with a virtual floppy diskette drive connected to the physical diskette drive
  • No diskette is inserted in the physical floppy diskette drive
  • An I/O error message appears in /var/log/messages on the ESX host:

    kernel: floppy0: unexpected interrupt 
    kernel: floppy0: sensei repl[0]=80 
    kernel: floppy0: disk absent or changed during operation
    kernel: end_request: I/O error, dev 02:00 (floppy), sector 0

Solution

This logging message can safely be ignored.  
 
The message is generated when the virtual machine attempts to access the virtual floppy diskette device. This causes the VMkernel to poll the ISA interrupt for the floppy diskette controller to access the diskette and send the data to the virtual machine. When a diskette is not present, the floppy diskette drive signals an I/O error indicating that the device is not ready which is logged by the ESX console operating system.

Based on VMware KB 1001414
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