Creating a vfat file system
[Please reply to me personally as well as to the list. I don't
usually have the time to keep up with this list.]
Is there a way within Debian GNU/Linux i386 to make a VFAT file system
on a hard disk partition?
Background to the question: My laptop came with Windows 98. I
repartitioned keeping the Windows 98 in /dev/hda1. I installed Debian
GNU/Linux on /dev/hda3 with a swap partition on /dev/hda5 and /users
on /dev/hda6. /dev/hda2 was reserved for Windows NT in case I wanted
to use that at work. Eventually I decided to remove NT. I would now
like to use /dev/hda2 as a second VFAT partition.
I used cfdisk to reset the partition type to Win95 FAT32 (0B), which
is the same type as /dev/hda1. When I started up Windows 98 it found
that the "D" drive was not formatted and I agreed to have it format
that drive. Then Win98 wanted to run Scandisk with the "thorough"
option. I allowed that. It got about halfway through the partition
according to its calculations then went into a tight loop. Apparently
Scandisk was detecting every block as being corrupt and marking them
as corrupt. I think it was Scandisk that had the problem not the disk
itself.
Next time I booted Linux there were all sorts of errors on /dev/hda6
of all places. Fortunately /dev/hda3 looks ok.
Is there a mkfs.vfat or something like it within Debian that I can use
to create the VFAT file system safely? My experience with Microsoft
utilities is not encouraging. I would prefer to manipulate my file
systems under Linux where I have some chance of understanding what is
going on.
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