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From: Robert Nordier <rnordier@iafrica.com>
Message-Id: <199701010805.KAA02683@eac.iafrica.com>
Subject: Re: mounting msdos filesystem
In-Reply-To: <32C9BED2.5FB9@kellysoftware.com> from "Keith A. Fredericks" at "Dec 31, 96 08:33:06 pm"
To: keith@kellysoftware.com (Keith A. Fredericks)
Date: Wed, 1 Jan 1997 10:05:10 +0200 (SAT)
Cc: questions@freebsd.org
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Keith A. Fredericks wrote:

> I wrote a few weeks ago about a horrible problem that I was having where
> my filesystems were vaporizing.  Fix possibilities from my problem report
> were bleak, i.e. get a new disk, controller, or cable.  Anyway, I went
> through all of the possibly funny stuff I might be doing and remembered
> a mild warning on the mount_msdos man page about unpredictable stuff for
> DOS greater than 3.3.
> 
> I took the entry that mounted the msdos filesystem out of my fstab and what
> do you know?  I have had no problems whatsoever since then.  I have been a
> little shy to retest the hypothesis that mounting msdos is hosing my system.
> But, if this is the case, I am thinking about the possibility of a more
> stern warning to the mount_msdos man page reader.

The problem has been fixed in 2.2-BETA and -current.

> Does anyone use DOS 3.3 now?  Do people mount >3.3 filesystems successfully?

"DOS 3.3" really means filesystems compatible with DOS 3.3 rather
than created by DOS 3.3.  These are partitions types 1 (12-bit FAT)
and 4 (16-bit FAT) as well as floppy formats.

Partition type 6 (size exceeding 32MB) filesystems can be mounted
safely if the cluster size does not exceed 16K.  (For 2.2-BETA and
-current, this limitations does not apply.)

> Do people have experience mounting Windows 95 level DOS filesystems?

The partition types already mentioned work (with loss of long filenames).
More recently introduced types (ie. VFAT32) won't.

--
Robert Nordier