Re: need help on vfat partition

[Eike Lantzsch <zp6cge@gmx.net>]

On Saturday, December 16, 2017 5:13:20 PM -03 Pascal Hambourg wrote:
> Le 16/12/2017 à 11:45, Eike Lantzsch a écrit :
> > On Saturday, December 16, 2017 10:10:08 AM -03 Long Wind wrote:
> >> maybe the reason is the partition is too big
> > 
> > for FAT16 or vfat yes. You need to format it as FAT32 or NTFS.
> 
> (...)
> 
> >> PS: the choice of vfat is that IMO vfat is more cross-platform
> > 
> > not really. VFAT allows long filenames - otherwise it is not better than
> > FAT16. That means it allows only partitions up to 2GB.
> 
> FWIW, vfat is not a filesystem layout type, so it has no size limitation
> per se. It is only a way to use long filenames with any FAT type, FAT12,
> FAT16 or FAT32. So vfat on FAT32 has the limits of FAT32.
That is interesting. Any references? The documents I found seem to tell only 
part of the story then.

OK, I found this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File_Allocation_Table

"Further, the term "VFAT" has led to various misconceptions as well,[nb 1] as 
it is sometimes erroneously used as if it would describe another variant of 
FAT file system to be distinguished from the FAT12, FAT16 and FAT32 file 
systems, while in reality it does not specify another file system, but an 
optional extension, which can work on top of any FAT file system, FAT12, FAT16 
or FAT32. Volumes utilizing VFAT long-filenames can be read also by operating 
systems not supporting the VFAT extension, as long any operating systems that 
support the underlying file system (FAT12, FAT16, or FAT32)."

Conclusion:
Long Wind's partition has type b, that is FAT32.
Now making a filesystem with mkfs.vfat /dev/sda7 should make it readable and 
writable for WinXP.