rosapps/sysutils/mkdosfs/README

   1 mkdosfs - Make DOS file system utilty.
   2
   3
   4 I wrote this, partially to complement the dosfsck utility written by Werner
   5 Almesberger (who graciously gave me some pointers when I asked for some
   6 advice about writing this code), and also to avoid me having to boot DOS
   7 just to create data partitions (I use Linux to back up DOS :-) ).
   8
   9 The code is really derived from Remy Card's mke2fs utility - I used this as a
  10 framework, although all of the file system specific stuff was removed and the
  11 DOS stuff inserted.  I believe originally mke2fs was based on Linus' mkfs
  12 code, hence the acknowledgements in the source code.
  13
  14 Neither Remy nor Linus have had any involvement with mkdosfs, so if there are
  15 any bugs they're almost certainly "all my own work".
  16
  17 The code has been available for ftp since 1st September 1993, and I have yet
  18 to receive any bug reports from users.  I don't know of any bugs, but if you
  19 do find a bug or have any constructive comments, please mail me!
  20
  21 The only bug I found with version 0.1 was an obscure fault that could lead
  22 to an invalid (for MS-DOS, not Linux's dos fs) number of sectors used in the
  23 file allocation table(s).
  24
  25
  26 Dave Hudson
  27 dave@humbug.demon.co.uk
  28
  29
  30 FAT32 support
  31 =============
  32
  33 mkdosfs now can also create filesystems in the new FAT32 format. To do
  34 this, give mkdosfs a "-F 32" option. FAT32 isn't selected
  35 automatically (yet), even if very large clusters are needed with
  36 FAT16. With FAT32 you have two additional options, -R to select the
  37 number of reserved sectors (usually 32), and -b to select the location
  38 of the backup boot sector (default 6). Of course such a backup is
  39 created, as well as the new info sector. On FAT32, the root directory
  40 is always created as a cluster chain. Sorry, there's no switch to
  41 generate an old static root dir.
  42
  43 One bigger bug fix besides FAT32 was to reject filesystems that need a
  44 16 bit FAT to fit all possible clusters, but the bigger FAT needs some
  45 more sectors, so the total number of clusters drop below the border
  46 where MS-DOS expects a 12 bit FAT. So such filesystems would be FAT16,
  47 but interpreted as FAT32 by DOS. The fix is to reduce filesystem size
  48 a bit.
  49
  50 - Roman <Roman.Hodek@informatik.uni-erlangen.de>