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From: kientzle@netcom.com
Subject: Re: can fat32 partition be mounted?
Message-ID: <kientzleE8w6zx.E1M@netcom.com>
Organization: Netcom
References: <33554DFA.41C67EA6@isi.edu> <5j5abm$8j1@ui-gate.utell.co.uk> <5j6ju2$s1g$4@otis.netspace.net.au> <33582447.167EB0E7@isi.edu>
Date: Sat, 19 Apr 1997 15:57:32 GMT
Lines: 30
Sender: kientzle@netcom5.netcom.com
Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc:39352
In article <33582447.167EB0E7@isi.edu>,
Cengiz Alaettinoglu <cengiz@isi.edu> wrote:
>Mark Heath wrote:
>> I think your confusing VFAT for FAT32.
>Partition Magic under Windows says the partition is FAT32, freeBSD fdisk
>says sysid 11 (unknown). Is this a VFAT partition?
Probably both VFAT and FAT32.
VFAT refers to Win95's technique for squeezing long Unicode file names
into an MSDOS-compatible directory. It involves storing two separate
file names: one short MSDOS-compatible name, and a longer name stored
in special directory entries that are marked so that most systems
will ignore them. In particular, most systems that read/write MSDOS
disks can use VFAT volumes, even though they may only see the short names.
The name comes from the name of the Win95 FAT file-system module.
FAT32 refers to a different way of structuring the FAT allocation
table to support larger volumes. This was introduced by Microsoft
with an updated version of Windows 95 (early Win95 doesn't support it,
either). Earlier versions are FAT16 and FAT12.
FreeBSD 2.1 (which I'm using) does not support either one, although I
do personally use it to read/write to VFAT/FAT16 volumes. (The Win95 long
names occasionally get lost, but that's no big problem for me.)
- Tim Kientzle