>> NOTE: Transformation of sector sizes is easiest in FAT32. >> Other FAT sizes may take more effort. > > I don't think so. Why would they? Cluster size stays the same, no > FAT-related special handling (which would be more complicated for, say, > FAT12) is necessary as far as I can tell.
Sorry for replying to my own message, but I just thought of something here again. You're probably referring to the root directory alignment handling, which of course is not needed in FAT32 as its root directory is not in a specifically reserved area. As I noted in our (Eric) previous correspondence, the special case where some rounding is required (which might imply an incompatibility) doesn't usually occur (as formatting software usually leaves no unused directory entries in the last sector). >> You CANNOT transform from >> 512 to 4096 usually, as format tools do not take care to >> align things in a way that would make this easy enough. > > True. Another additional note, as I went thinking about this a bit. Only cluster values are stored in the FS (think FAT contents, FSINFO, and "start cluster" fields of directory entries) apart from what is in the *BPB, so a runtime upwards sector size transformation (say, from 512 B to 4 KiB, or from 128 B to 512 B, or whatever) is still possible, just more complicated. I'm not certain, but my intuition is that it'd still be rather trivial to do. As might be thought to be implied, transformation from 512 B away seems rather pointless now, but as I remarked in the previous paragraph, an "upwards" transformation could be /to/ 512 B if the stored file system (whether it is stored on some physical medium, in a file as an image, on a RAM disk, etc) uses smaller sectors. regards, C. Masloch ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Keep Your Developer Skills Current with LearnDevNow! The most comprehensive online learning library for Microsoft developers is just $99.99! Visual Studio, SharePoint, SQL - plus HTML5, CSS3, MVC3, Metro Style Apps, more. Free future releases when you subscribe now! http://p.sf.net/sfu/learndevnow-d2d _______________________________________________ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
