Date: Sat, 1 Feb 1997 17:21:16 -0700 (MST) From: Terry Lambert <terry@lambert.org> To: BigDaddy@LiveNet.Net (Joseph I. Arias) Cc: hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Subject: Re: Installing from DOS partition Message-ID: <199702020021.RAA07020@phaeton.artisoft.com> In-Reply-To: <199702012131.QAA15986@Clifford.LiveNet.Net> from "Joseph I. Arias" at Feb 1, 97 04:27:00 pm
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> > ..because it's probably still a VFAT filesystem, i assume. > > > > Install DOS 5. :) > > So dos 6.22 is a VFAT system? I was told different and that could be the > only thing that it is? There is no difference between a FAT and a VFAT system. They have the same data layout. The difference is in the use of the directory layout. FAT creates directory entries that, uniformly, never have all their attribute bits set. In FAT, a directory entry *is* the on disk inode (this is why DOS can't do hard links). VFAT creates additional directory entries for the "long names" for files. It does this by setting all the attribute bits on the entry, and storing the long name data in the entry itself on the disk. So it tends to use up a lot of directory entries. It turns out that every piece of software Microsoft tested ignores entries with all attribute bits set. Because of the way the DOS findfirst/findnext operates, and the fact that one of the bits is the "volume label" bit, software which uses the INT 21 DOS interfaces never see these entries. Other than reducing the number of real files that you can put in the root directory by their very presence (the root has an existing hard limit on the number of files, which dates back to before DOS knew about directories), these additional entries will have ZERO, NONE, ZILCH, NOTTA, *NO* EFFECT ON WHETHER OR NOT YOU CAN MOUNT THE DISK. Regards, Terry Lambert terry@lambert.org --- Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present or previous employers.
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