I have had this problem for a long time now, but I am just writing
about it now (because I am fed up with it :)) -- I have a vfat filesystem
that works just fine in windows 95, but does not want to work in linux.
The error I get is the syslog is:
[MS-DOS FS Rel. 12,FAT 16,check=n,conv=b,uid=0,gid=0,umask=077]
[me=0xf8,cs=16,#f=2,fs=1,fl=168,ds=337,de=512,data=369,se=0,ts=717633,ls=512]
Transaction block size = 512
VFS: Can't find a valid MSDOS filesystem on dev 03:05.
I have other vfat filesystems that work fine, but this one does not. I
had similar problems with another filesystem and I think what I did to
correct it was to re-SYS the disk in windows 95 but I'm not 100% sure if
that was the fixer. This leads me to believe that the linux vfat driver
is not recognizing the first sector properly ( I say that because I tried
dd'ing another partition's first sector over the first sector on the
partition that wasn't working and it mounted (but, of course this is not a
fix because the data on the mounted on the partition was only a directory
on the partition (e.g.: the mounted filesystem was corrupt)) So I
restored the original bootsector on that partition and again it was
unmountable. I am enclosing the 1-st 512-byte sector below for your
browsing pleasure :).
-Seth
I am a loser so I don't have MIME -- but I do have UUENCODE!
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begin 600 bootsect
MZSR035-724XT+C$``A`!``(``@``^*@`/P!``#\```!!\PH`@``I[`I?-"`@
M("`@("`@("`@1D%4,38@("#Z,\F.T;S\>Q8'O7@`Q78`'E865;\B!8E^`(E.
M`K$+_/.D!A^]`'S&1?X/BT88B$7Y.$XD?2*+P9GH=P%R&H/K.F:A''QF.P>*
M5_QU!H#*`HA6`H##$'/M,\F*1A"8]V86`T8<$U8>`T8.$]&+=A%@B4;\B5;^
MN"``]^:+7@L#PTCW\P%&_!%._F&_``?H(P%R.3@M=!=@L0N^V'WSIF%T.4YT
M"8/'(#O[<N?KW;Y_?:R8`_"LA,!T%SS_=`FT#KL'`,T0Z^Z^@GWKY;Z`?>O@
MF,T67A]FCP3-&;Z!?8M]&HU%_HI.#??A`T;\$U;^L03HP0!RUNH``G``M$+K
M+6!F:@!24`93:@%J$(OT=.R1DC/2]W88D?=V&$*'RO=V&HKRBNC`S`(*S+@!
M`HI6),T3C60087(*0'4!0@->"TEU=\,#&`$G#0I);G9A;&ED('-Y<W1E;2!D
M:7-K_PT*1&ES:R!)+T\@97)R;W+_#0I297!L86-E('1H92!D:7-K+"!A;F0@
M=&AE;B!P<F5S<R!A;GD@:V5Y#0H``$E/("`@("`@4UE335-$3U,@("!365-_
1`0!!NP`'@'X"#NE`_P``5:IY
`
end
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