USB thumb drive questio

Tue Apr 25 16:00:34 UTC 2006

On Tue, 2006-04-25 at 09:49 -0500, Mikkel L. Ellertson wrote:
> Tim wrote:
> > On Mon, 2006-04-24 at 11:09 -0400, Michael H. Warfield wrote:
> >> Linux really doesn't care much about the partition type.  It's going
> >> to look for the file system signatures and, pretty much, ignore the
> >> partition type codes in the partition tables.
> > 
> > It might be used to preselect what type of format to do to a new
> > partition, by default...

> I am not sure what "It" is, but partitions are not formatted when
> they are created - you have to specify the type of formatting you
> want done. One thing to keep in mind - if you do not specify that
> you want FAT32, then mkdosfs will not create a FAT32 file system. I
> am not sure, but I believe this is to maintain computability with
> the widest range of DOS versions.

	True...  But partitions are tagged with a "type" when they are created.
If you have a partition of type 6 (FAT16) and format it as VFAT32, how
is it suppose to be handled?  Linux doesn't care.  Windows might.  How
should the BIOS handle it?  Can you say that no software will get
confused if you format a partition type 83 (Linux) with VFAT?  Will
Windows find it?

	Safest thing is to make sure the partition type, in the partition
table, agrees with the file system you are formatting on the partition.

	Mike

> Mikkel
> -- 
> 
>   Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons,
> for thou art crunchy and taste good with Ketchup!
> 
-- 
Michael H. Warfield (AI4NB) | (770) 985-6132 |  mhw at WittsEnd.com
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