Much has happened since I filed this bug, and much I have learned. 1) dosfstools is abandoned upstream. I have received email from the prior maintainer indicating that he is locked out of github apparently by intentional action on github's part; and furthermore he's quit maintaining it rather than try to migrate to another hosting provider only to have the same happen again.
2) FreeDOS's need is greater, so I have been laboring there; my own attempt at solving this problem for FreeDOS has reached alpha4, and it's currently looking better than the shipped dosfsck for use. Soon the time will come when I am ready to publish the release version. 3) I see in the mind's eye the following solutions to running my solution for Linux's benefit: run under dosbox or run under dosemu2. This will be wildly controversial, but right now dosfsck doesn't repair power loss damage very well, which is the whole point of having such a tool. I have considered the possibility of transpiling my assembly code; but I'm really hoping somebody else produces a high level language solution; thus leaving *yet another* version to choose from. I suppose somebody could consider the existing dosfsck code and try to fix it, but that somebody isn't me. I found a gut-replace to be in order, and nobody wants to maintain a debian patchset that's bigger than the original code.
