Making a FAT32 FS
 

I was wondering how I can make a FAT32 filesystem under slackware for my external hdd. Using fdisk, I changed the partition to "win95 fat32." There's also a "win95 fat32 (lba);" what are the differences between these two? My ext hdd was labeled ntfs prior to the change. When I go to make the fat32 fs, it doesn't work.

The command I use is "mkfs -t fat32 /dev/sda." But the output I get is "mkfs.fat32: No such file or directory."

the LBA thing is for extended partitions (so you
can have win read logical drives in an extended
partition). The tool to use for formatting it is
mkdosfs
man mkdosfs for details

It appears that your external HDD is not being
picked up as sda. Have a look at /proc/scsi/scsi.

You also don't want to format the raw-device but
a partition in it /dev/sd<a-z><1-9>


Cheers,
Tink

Thanks, it's working now.

Okay, maybe not all is working fine. It won't let me mount saying that "mount: fs type fat32 not supported by kernel." I made sure to check off support for msdos fs and vfat in my .config, but it still doesn't want to mount.

I tried changing my fstab... It doesn't seem to work... When I type in mount /dev/sda1, it gives me the error

Here is the sda1 line from fstab:

You checked it off but did you compile the kernel? If you compiled, did you include vfat as a module or build it in? If as a module is the module loaded? Sorry if the answers are obvious.

Yeah, they're built as modules; how do I check if they were loaded? Anyways, I think under fstab, it should be considered "fat32" in the first place, but "vfat" instead. So I changed it to vfat. Ok, one problem after another... I did mkdir /st3, then mount /dev/sda1, but get!!!

instead of

Seriously, as soon as I fix one problem, another one appears.

Ok, so I figured out that my sda1 partition somehow just dissappeared, AGAIN. So I had to remake it blah blah blah... Then I had to mkdosfs -F 32 /dev/sda1... But now, of course, I get a different problem...

Nice, I got it to work using ext2 fs; now it's time to try to get it working with fat32.

Wow, still no luck with the fat32.... Can someone tell me where I went wrong? Does this code below look good or is it off?

That worked fine! :)

Oh yeah: modprobe vfat is what you're looking for. ;)

Ok, I typed in modprobe vfat, and got fatal error. This was when vfat was not built as module, so I built it as a module, and now it doesn't give me anything. I just type in modprobe vfat, and it doesn't appear to do anything. What does modprobe do? Anyways, I checked on my Windows XP, and it doesn't detect the FAT32 either, so something has to be wrong. I still get the error

Whenever I try to mount /dev/sda1... What's up?

A great number of Unix/Linux tools work like that
and only give you feed-back if something fails.

Probes loading a module, and if successful, is
happy with that :)

What is the actual line you're using to mount, did
you make a fstab entry that differs from what you're
typing on the command-line?

What's the output of
mount
cat /etc/fstab
lsmod


Cheers,
Tink

Well...if you have Windoze XP, just format the drive with that. It'll let you select FAT32.

Oops, my windows xp does detect the fat32, but only with firewire connection, not usb (strange)...

Okay so out put for mount:
cat /etc/fstab:
and lsmod:

Oh you mean from boot? Lol, I thought of that a while ago, but I can't seem to find my windows xp cd.....

Looking at that output ...

You sure that it's being picked up as sda1? There's no
sign of usb-storage or the commonly necessary scsi-
modules ... I'm quite confused. Or is all that stuff compiled
into your kernel? And if so, why is half the other USB
stuff not? :)

Cheers,
Tink

Shouldn't be detected as /dev/sda1? I wouldn't be able to do mkdosfs -F 32 /dev/sda1 successfully if it wasn't detecting as sda1 right?

I'm using firewire at the moment. That should be it right there.

The FAT32 really is detected under Windows XP, just for some reason, does not want to mount at all under Linux.

It still gives me:

I have NO experience with firewire devices. I have
had lots of dealings with usb, though. And I can say
that a usb hdd won't do anything if the scsi-bits
and usb-storage isn't loaded.

Can you post the output of dmesg?


Cheers,
Tink

dmesg:
Looks like I've got some problems, but this might help me find out how to fix it.

Doesn't look too happy, indeed. Are using
Pat's kernel, or did you roll one yourself?


Cheers,
Tink

I'm using con kolivas. In the kernel options for VFAT FS Support there are two options

1) (437) Default codpage for FAT
2) Default IO charset for FAT: iso8859-1

What values should replace the 437 and the iso8859-1? Those are the default values given...

Fixed!!! I reinstalled Slack 10, so now I'm using kernel version 2.4.26... It was the 2.6.8.1 ck3 kernel... Well anyways, I noticed that

1) (437) Default codpage for FAT
2) Default IO charset for FAT: iso8859-1

options were not in the menuconfig, so it has to be those options that are messing everything up. You guys know how to work this?

OK. This is getting extremely ANNOYING. Now that my external hdd is working, I can't copy files onto it WTF. And the error this time is!!!

"The destination disk is read-only."

Amazing... Really, just fcuking great... How do I allow WRITE enabled on my FAT32??? Man, what the fcuk do I have to do to get this shiet going? It says WRITE is enabled under permissons, so WTF. I can't even change the options under permissions because "Couldn't change the permissions of "fat32" because it is on a read-only disk."

I don't know for sure, but this link might help. It was great for teaching me to create Fat32 ZIP disks that I could read from my windoze machine. I believe it tells how to create Fat16, but it's only one small change in step 3 (hit L and it will list the correct code for Fat32). (oh, and don't use partition 4 -- that is specific to ZIP disks)

http://docs.cs.byu.edu/docs/ziplinux/1.php

Good luck,

Garry

And again the output of
mount
and knowledge of your fstab and the commandline you're
using to mount it would be helpful in diagnosing the problem.

If you just want to vent go talk at a parking meter.



Cheers,
Tink

Sorry about that. Anyways, I don't know what happened... But it works now... shiet.

Okay, a bit of the same trouble. It was working fine in 2.4.26, but when I moved back up to the 2.6.8.1 ck3, it doesn't work anymore and gives me:

I'm thinking it has to do with those two extra options that are now included with the new kernel:

1) (437) Default codpage for FAT
2) Default IO charset for FAT: iso8859-1

Anybody know what values I should use for these two kernel options? The default ones don't seem to work... Or maybe the problem is coming from elsewhere, but I do know that moving from 2.4.26 to 2.6.8.1 ck3 creates the problem.

Assuming your kernel source directory is in /usr/src, what is your output for :

cat /usr/src/linux-2.6.8.1/.config | grep -i fat

CONFIG_FAT_DEFAULT_CODEPAGE=437
CONFIG_FAT_DEFAULT_IOCHARSET="iso8859-1"

These are the two new options that come with 2.6.8.1... And I think they might be messing up my fat32 access. I can't turn them off; I can only change the values.

Updated to 2.6.7 kernel, and FAT32 works on that kernel as well. So 2.4.26 and 2.6.7 kernels work, but not the 2.6.8.1.

Which once again proves that 2.6 is in a
rather early state of its life-cycle ;)


Cheers,
Tink