On Sat, 17 Feb 2001 16:14:55 +0900 (JST), you wrote:

[snip]
> So I started putting in disks at random and trying `ls /mnt2' to see
> what is going on, and low and behold it keeps telling me that the
> contents of some previous disk is there, despite the fact that I've
> done a umount/mount.  The floppy access lamp doesn't even turn on.
>=20
> Is it the machine;=20

Yes, I think so.  Floppy drives have a "media change" sensor (or some
such name), which whatever operating system you're using is supposed
to take notice of, and react to changes in by rescanning the media.

I've had exactly the same symptoms as you on an MSDOS machine before,
when the floppy drive's sensor started failing to notice/report
diskette changes.  The DOS DIR command would show the contents of the
previous diskette, even though I'd swapped disks. I found I could
force the OS to notice a media change by ejecting the old disk, and
then trying to access the new disk without actually inserting it (!)
At this point DOS did its usual=20
   Drive not ready reading drive A:
   Abort, Retry, Fail
stuff, and I would reply "A(bort)"; *then* I inserted the new disk,
and *then* DOS could see the new disk's contents.  I don't know how
resilient NetBSD would be to this kind of silly game though.

Eventually I opened the PC up, removed the drive and gave it a good
shake and vacuum clean, after which it resumed normal working. =20

Dust in the guts ???
Just a thought - maybe your problem is quite different.

Nick
Bristol, UK
--
Turnaucka's Law:
The attention span of a computer is only as long as its electrical cord.