From owner-freebsd-hackers Sun Apr 27 12:11:51 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id MAA23996 for hackers-outgoing; Sun, 27 Apr 1997 12:11:51 -0700 (PDT) Received: from phaeton.artisoft.com (phaeton.Artisoft.COM [198.17.250.50]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id MAA23990 for ; Sun, 27 Apr 1997 12:11:46 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from terry@localhost) by phaeton.artisoft.com (8.6.11/8.6.9) id MAA08985; Sun, 27 Apr 1997 12:07:04 -0700 From: Terry Lambert Message-Id: <199704271907.MAA08985@phaeton.artisoft.com> Subject: Re: VFAT 32 support in msdosfs To: ksmm@cybercom.net (The Classiest Man Alive) Date: Sun, 27 Apr 1997 12:07:04 -0700 (MST) Cc: terry@lambert.org, joa@kuebart.stuttgart.netsurf.de, hackers@freebsd.org In-Reply-To: <1.5.4.32.19970426232352.007060a4@cybercom.net> from "The Classiest Man Alive" at Apr 26, 97 07:23:52 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-hackers@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk > >These machines are capable of reading long-name-in-volume-label FAT > >drives ("VFAT"). But the partitions they use by default, and the > >partition table format, and the MBR and the io.sys/io.dos/msdos.dos > >where the INT 21 interface is instantiated *all* expect VFAT32. I'm > >not sure that an OEMSR2 INT 21 is capable of identifying and booting > >from a "VFAT" drive at all. > > Windows 95 OEM SR2 certainly can boot from a VFAT drive. That's my point. > VFAT32 may be coming into widespread use, but I don't think it's time for us > (or Microsoft) to start dropping support for VFAT. I don't know how you got an OEMSR2 boot block and INT 21 code onto a VFAT drive, but I'd be interested in finding out. I suspect that if you are running OEMSR2 on VFAT that you have the older bootblock code. MSDN-2 developers (like me) got betas with the ability to "upgrade" an existing VFAT drive to VFAT32. Since there was no reverse process, I wonder at how you can claim to be using the VFAT32 io.sys on a VFAT drive. In any case, normal end users who get new machines with OEMSR2 already installed (like all new Dell machines) get VFAT32 installed by default. FYI: You can't go down to a computer store and buy OEMSR2: it is only available in the beta form set to developers and the final form sent to PC manufacturers for inclusion on new systems. Regards, Terry Lambert terry@lambert.org --- Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present or previous employers.