vfat was introduced by Microsoft, with buggy implementation.
I tryed to test this fs. When I have written 4GB file
(exactly 4GB minus 1 byte! because this FS support only this in
directory structure - 4 bytes file length), this was okay.
next i booted winxp and run disk check. this cause, all 4GB files was
reduced to 0 (zero) bytes. But blocks in FAT are not released. Then I
run checkdisk under win98. this repair files and rewrite size to 4GB
minus 1 byte.
I think this is problem with windowsNT vfat support and based on it.
linux kernel should support winNT or different older win9x behavior.
It is strange, but winxp allow writing and other operations with 4GB
(minus 1 byte) on vfat fs. I think it is internal fsck problem, but
microsoft as usual says "this is not a bug, this is FEATURE".
For protection this bug, I prefer ext2/ext3 ofer XP usung, or NTFS-ng3
on linux. I think vfat is usable only for files to 2GB length (minus 1
byte). Larger files cause problems.
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Grzegorz Szyszło
Departament Informatyki
NOBLE Bank S.A.
Lublin, tel. (81)532-77-20 w.240 , kom.607-940-478
