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

[Hendrik Hasenbein]

Bill Moran wrote:
> Dan Finn <dhrider at gmail.com> 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?
> 
> 
> Unfortunately, none that I know of.  If you want to maintain Windows
> support, you're pretty much stuck with either NTFS or FAT, as Windows
> is pretty stupid and doesn't understand many filesystems.

There was a windows driver for ufs, but I don't know if it has been 
ported to newer windows versions. Perhaps google can help.

> Otherwise, you could use UFS or ext2, which work on both FreeBSD and
> Linux.
> 
> 
>>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 just need to copy the identical drives, you could ignore the 
filesystem and make a raw copy.

>>>>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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> 
> 
> 

Hendrik