can't mount 300G USB drive that's FAT32

[Kent Stewart]

On Friday 25 June 2004 02:26 pm, Dan Finn wrote:
> FAT32 wasn't my choice.  They needed to be writen to by a linux
> server but they want to be able to take these and just plug them into
> a windows server if need be.  We knew that linux writing ntfs wasn't
> a good choice so we decided on FAT32.  Is there a better solution?

Not that you apparently use but my experience is limited on the FreeBSD 
end. NTFS was designed to support larger drives that were real problems 
with the FAT design. NTFS used something like a Unix FS and that 
eliminated the dependancy on FAT. It also introduced real security to 
their file system but that doesn't matter because we can't write to 
NTFS.

Kent

>
> On Fri, 25 Jun 2004 14:17:50 -0700, Kent Stewart <kstewart at owt.com> 
wrote:
> > On Friday 25 June 2004 02:11 pm, Bill Moran wrote:
> > > [I copied Tom on this because I know he was working on FAT
> > > filesystem code at some point ... Don't know if he's still trying
> > > to do anything there or not.]
> > >
> > > Dan Finn <dhrider at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > > the system sees the disk:
> > > > Jun 24 15:37:30 stewie kernel: umass0: Maxtor OneTouch, rev
> > > > 2.00/2.00, addr 2 Jun 24 15:37:30 stewie kernel: umass0: Get
> > > > Max Lun not supported (STALLED) Jun 24 15:37:31 stewie kernel:
> > > > GEOM: create disk da0 dp=0xc2d85050 Jun 24 15:37:31 stewie
> > > > kernel: da0 at umass-sim0 bus 0 target 0 lun 0 Jun 24 15:37:31
> > > > stewie kernel: da0: <Maxtor OneTouch 0201> Fixed Direct Access
> > > > SCSI-0 device Jun 24 15:37:31 stewie kernel: da0: 1.000MB/s
> > > > transfers Jun 24 15:37:31 stewie kernel: da0: 286103MB
> > > > (585938944 512 byte sectors: 255H 63S/T 36473C)
> > > >
> > > > this is a Maxtor 300G USB drive.  A backup was written to it
> > > > via a linux 2.4 server and now I would like to mount it on my
> > > > FBSD laptop to read it and work with the files.
> > > >
> > > > When trying to mount it using mount_msdos I get the following:
> > > > [ root @ stewie : ~] : mount_msdosfs -o rw /dev/da0s1
> > > > /mnt/usb1/ mount_msdosfs: /dev/da0s1: Invalid argument
> > > >
> > > > and in /var/log/messages I get the following:
> > > > Jun 24 15:43:52 stewie kernel: mountmsdosfs(): disk too big,
> > > > sorry
> > >
> > > The source tells the story:
> > > >From msdosfs_vfsops.c
> > >
> > > ...
> > > /*
> > >  * We cannot deal currently with this size of disk
> > >  * due to fileid limitations (see msdosfs_getattr and
> > >  * msdosfs_readdir)
> > >  */
> > > ...
> > >
> > > This section of code exists even in -CURRENT, so it has not
> > > yet been improved in FreeBSD.
> > >
> > > > when trying to use ntfs to mount it I get :
> > > > [ root @ stewie : ~] : mount_ntfs /dev/da0s1 /mnt/usb1/
> > > > mount_ntfs: /dev/da0s1: Invalid argument
> > > > and nothing in any log file.
> > >
> > > Don't know what's going on there.
> > >
> > > > One of the taks I need to accomplish here is to copy all of the
> > > > data on this 300G USB drive onto an identical 300G USB drive. 
> > > > I was going to mount both and just copy from one to the other. 
> > > > After reading about the limited writing capabilities in the man
> > > > page of mount_ntfs I'm wondering if I would be better off doing
> > > > this on a linux box.
> > >
> > > If you ask me, you'd be better off using UFS, which doesn't have
> > > any of the weirdnesses or limitations of FAT _or_ NTFS.
> > >
> > > > The
> > > > linux box that created the origional backup onto the USB drive
> > > > had no problem creating the Fat32 filesystem and writing to it.
> > >
> > > Horay for Linux.
> > >
> > > If you really need to put FAT filesystems on these drives, you're
> > > not going to be able to use FreeBSD until the limitation is
> > > fixed.
> >
> > The other thing is that the cluster size must be huge. Fat32 was
> > supposed to start being inefficient around 8GB and this is well
> > beyond that :).
> >
> > Kent
> >
> > > You should file a PR on this ... it doesn't appear as if one is
> > > currently open that addresses this issue:
> > > http://www.freebsd.org/send-pr.html
> >
> > --
> > Kent Stewart
> > Richland, WA
> >
> > http://users.owt.com/kstewart/index.html
>
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-- 
Kent Stewart
Richland, WA

http://users.owt.com/kstewart/index.html