When attempting to copy files from a Windows machine to a Fedora Core 3 samba share, I'm getting an invalid file handle error. The files contain strange characters like ñ, è, and õ.
The partition is fat32, and has no other issues. I can copy the same file to an ext3 share on the same linux box without the error. Locally, I get "invalid parameters" error when I try to drag the offensive file from the ext3 partition to the fat32 partition.

I've come to the conclusion that there are file name limitations for fat32 mounts in Linux that are not present with ext3 mounts, or even the same fat32 on a windows box.

Is there a switch that can be flipped to allow Linux to write oddball filenames to a fat32 mount?


Thanks in advance

I gave up too soon... this appears to be the answer:

http://www.charmed.com/txt/vfat.txt

To solve the problem, I edited /etc/fstab to include "utf8=1" in column 4 of the vfat partition line.

Now I can type funny filenames till I'm blue in the fingers, and Linux is happy, and Windows is happy.

Are there any drawbacks to this method? Is there a better fix?

Thanks