From owner-freebsd-current Sat Oct 11 01:29:11 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id BAA08182 for current-outgoing; Sat, 11 Oct 1997 01:29:11 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-current) Received: from usr04.primenet.com (tlambert@usr04.primenet.com [206.165.6.204]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id BAA08177 for ; Sat, 11 Oct 1997 01:29:08 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from tlambert@usr04.primenet.com) Received: (from tlambert@localhost) by usr04.primenet.com (8.8.5/8.8.5) id BAA19839; Sat, 11 Oct 1997 01:29:00 -0700 (MST) From: Terry Lambert Message-Id: <199710110829.BAA19839@usr04.primenet.com> Subject: Re: VFAT/? Problem To: daniel@ncsu.edu Date: Sat, 11 Oct 1997 08:29:00 +0000 (GMT) Cc: freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG In-Reply-To: from "Daniel Henninger" at Oct 11, 97 03:23:42 am X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23] Content-Type: text Sender: owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk > /kernel: mountmsdosfs(): Warning: root directory is not a multiple of the > clustersize in length > > I know there has been talk about this problem in the past, I am just > curious as to what the status of it is. If no one is looking into it, I > might like to take a stab at it, but first I'd like to know if anyone > know's what's causing it? If you use a piece of software like "parted" to reduce the size of your MSDODSFS partition (say to install FreeBSD on the remainder of the disk), then you will leave the cluster size larger than is necessary for the size of the partition. When this happens, you will get this warning message. Because of the way MSDOSFS is written, you will also have the possibility of writing out the expected cluster size worth of FAT entries -- too many FAT entries -- and the driver will not enforce the partition boundry, and you can trash the front of the following partition. Usually the FreeBSD boot record and Slice A. Some fixes have gone in to deal with the overwrite without fixing the underlying problem (that without knowledge of the BIOS geometry, it's impossible to know how to enforce the sector restrictions). Terry Lambert terry@lambert.org --- Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present or previous employers.