Why can't I access my floppy disk?

[Anthony Atkielski]

Ruben de Groot writes:

>  1     Secure mode - the system immutable and system append-only flags may
>        not be turned off; disks for mounted file systems, /dev/mem,
>        /dev/kmem and /dev/io (if your platform has it) may not be opened
>        for writing; kernel modules (see kld(4)) may not be loaded or
>        unloaded.

Disks for mounted file systems ... but the floppy disk was not mounted.
Indeed, the problem was just that:  I couldn't mount it.

>  2     Highly secure mode - same as secure mode, plus disks may not be
>        opened for writing (except by mount(2)) whether mounted or not.
>        This level precludes tampering with file systems by unmounting
>        them, but also inhibits running newfs(8) while the system is multi-
>        user.

I wasn't trying to open the diskette for writing.  Even a read-only attempt
to mount the diskette failed.

If securelevel=3 prohibits mounting floppy disks, then the documentation
should say something like "floppy disks cannot be mounted at this
level."

-- 
Anthony