It appears that the FAT file system in eCos works if the "whole disk" is
a single partition, meaning that the FAT Boot Sector is written into the
MBR at sector zero. But if the disk uses a partition table in the MBR,
then the code doesn't understand it, rejects the disk as non-FAT, and
fails the mount. This happens even if the disk contains only a single
partition.
I guess a quick enhancement would be for fatfs_mount() or fatfs_init()
to check the partition table, see if there's at least one entry, and
mount the first one it finds. If there are no partition entries, *then*
check if the MBR is a valid FAT boot sector. This would make most disks
(and compact flash cards) at least partially useful, rather than being
rejected out right.
As a longer term enhancement, supporting multiple partitions would be
nice, but ideas on how to resolve the devs/mtab idea of a disk to
different partitions would be appreciated.
- Frank
