FAT32 Support

mrsolo · 07-10-2002, 12:19 PM

I am trying to read from a USB harddrive that has a fat32 system on it. I had compiled the new 2.5.25 kernel with DOS FAT fs support, MSDOS fs support, and VFAT fs support. I didn't compile them as modules, I clicked on yes in the xconfig menu. Then of course I compiled and installed the kernel. When I go to mount the harddrive, it says that fat32 is not supported by the kernel. What is wrong? Do I need to do something else or am I not doing something right?

acid_kewpie · 07-10-2002, 12:30 PM

why are you using a development branch of the kernel? unless you have very good reasons to do otherwise, you really should stick with 2.4.x

dorward · 07-10-2002, 12:34 PM

If it says "fat32" is not supported then I suspect you are telling it that the filesystem is "fat32" when you should be calling it "vfat"

mrsolo · 07-10-2002, 12:44 PM

I redid fstab to say vfat instead of fat32, now I get the message that the device is not a valid block device. What is that?

acid_kewpie · 07-10-2002, 12:48 PM

i don't know abuot usb hard drives, but i guess you're trying to mount the entire drive rather than a partition, as would be the case for a standard ide / scsi hard drive. does the drive contain partitions? if so then reference the partition itself.

why didn't i see that fat32/vfat thing? that'd make a bloody good test question!

mrsolo · 07-10-2002, 12:53 PM

The drive has one fat32 partition on it. How do I tell Linux to reference that partition in fstab?

acid_kewpie · 07-10-2002, 01:08 PM

well following convention, try sticking a 1 at the end of whatever it is you are currently using. i seriously have zero experience of ANYTHING USB though, but i'd guess it would be closer to a hard drive than a cdrom, which doesn't have partitions.

Phonics3k · 07-10-2002, 02:27 PM

usb harddrive functions the same as a normal ide/scsi hdd except it uses the usb connector

mrsolo · 07-11-2002, 08:09 AM

Well, I've pretty much figured out everything except for one thing. When my devce gets connected, what scsi device does it conect to? The Linux USB page syas that usually it's dev/sda1 but I have a scsi cdrom and the documentation saud that could cause the usb harddrive to be moved to another dev/sd? I have usbview that shows the drive but is there a log or something that will tell me what dev/? that contains the usb harddrive?

Phonics3k · 07-14-2002, 05:01 PM

most probs sda2

linuxcool · 07-14-2002, 09:03 PM

If your cdrom is /dev/sda, then the usb drive could be /dev/sdb. Try using /dev/sdb1 to mount it.