Getting short file names on mounted VFAT file system?

manorina · 09-03-2009, 01:58 AM

Is it possible to force Linux to read or list the short file names on a VFAT mounted filesystem? It seems that when mounting a VFAT media device, Linux will always preferentially list the long file name entry rather than the shortname (8.3 format) entry.

My particular problem is that I'm wanting to get the short file names of a MS-DOS filesystem (the hard drive on my ancient mp3 player, (Creative Zen Neeon) so that I can make m3u lists that my mp3 player will understand. It cannot interpret long file names in an m3u list.

colucix · 09-03-2009, 02:51 AM

Nope. The default behaviour for a mounted VFAT filesystem is "if a long name for a file exists, it will always be preferred display" (from man mount). However, Linux provides the mdir command from the mtools package: it does not work as the old MS-DOS command dir, anyway. In fact to list the content of a mounted VFAT, you have to edit the file /etc/mtools.conf and change the path of the C: device with that actually used.