[nflug] Formatting FAT32 partitions

[Greg Neumann]

Well, as usual, I stand corrected. But I think you're touching on the 
problem w/ the "fragmenting". I think that the File Allocation Tables 
(the FAT in FAT) get so huge when FAT32 gets bigger than 100gb that it's 
downright dangerous to use them, especially w/ all the extra swap file 
usage that all Windows versions like to do. Well, too far afield.  I'll 
stop NOW! ;-)
-Greg

Cyber Source wrote:

> As far as I know there is no limit as to the size of formatting, at 
> least in Linux. I do know that if a drive is beyond 40GB, xtra pooched 
> :) will ONLY show ntfs as a formatting option, this use to drive me 
> nuts on clients machines, oh and it your formatting like 80 in ntfs, 
> go to lunch, wash your car, cause it's gonna be a while.
> Now there's probably good reason from a fragmenting view NOT to format 
> such a large partition with FAT32 but it can easily be done as such 
> "mkdosfs -F 32 /dev/hd??" Where ?? is your drive letter and partition 
> number for your IDE drive, although thinking about it now, if it's a 
> USB external drive it will probably be recognized as a /dev/sd? vs 
> /dev/hd?.
> Anyway, watch how freaking fast that formats that drive, you will 
> probably think it didn't work but it did. The only thing that format 
> line will not do is copy the mysterious signature line that windows 
> puts there when formatting and the ONLY resulting problem would be 
> that you couldn't boot from that drive if you were to install a 
> windows os on it, it needs that signature line to boot from but all 
> else will be perfectly fine, I don't know how or if it's possible to 
> write the signature from Linux land. Unless gonna boot windows from 
> the drive, it's a mute point.
> On the file size issue, there are file size limitations, and I'm sure 
> my memory is a little foggy about this but I believe, Fat32's limit is 
> 2GB and NTFS is 4GB. EXT2/3's use to have a 4GB limit as well but not 
> anymore. Correct me if I'm wrong on these guys but the long story 
> short is, if think it's strange because you found a file limit size, 
> it's not.
>
> Tony Abou-Assaleh wrote:
>
>> Can Linux/BSD format FAT32 partitions that are about 250GB? It turns out
>> that neither Win2000 nor WinXP can do it (by design).
>>
>> An even funnier thing, I don't seem to be able to create files larger 
>> than
>> 4GB on this pre-formatted external Drive.
>>
>> I am thinking about formating it using ext3 or UFS and then making it
>> available locally to windows using NFS or Samba. Does anyone have
>> experience doing a similar thing? What file system is best for such
>> partitions? (250GB USB HDD). Portability is certainly a concern, so even
>> if WinBlah doesn't support it, I'd like that at least Linux, FreeBSD, 
>> and
>> OSX be able to support it.
>>
>> Cheers,
>>
>> TAA
>>
>> -----------------------------------------------------
>> Tony Abou-Assaleh
>> Lecturer, Computer Science Department
>> Brock University, St. Catharines, ON, Canada, L2S 3A1
>> Office: MC J215
>> Tel:    +1(905)688-5550 ext. 5243
>> Fax:    +1(905)688-3255
>> Email:  taa at acm.org
>> WWW:    http://www.cosc.brocku.ca/~taa/
>> ----------------------[THE END]----------------------
>> _______________________________________________
>> nflug mailing list
>> nflug at nflug.org
>> http://www.nflug.org/mailman/listinfo/nflug
>>
>>  
>>
> _______________________________________________
> nflug mailing list
> nflug at nflug.org
> http://www.nflug.org/mailman/listinfo/nflug
>
_______________________________________________
nflug mailing list
nflug at nflug.org
http://www.nflug.org/mailman/listinfo/nflug