In message <m0td5zg-000014C@moacs.indiv.nl.net>, Waldi Ravens writes:
> Ignatios Souvatzis wrote:
> 
> >    No problem. When newdosfs(8) sets the number of reserved sectors to
> >    2 instead of the usual 1, the second reserved sector can be used to
> >    store timestamps and other usefull information (should of course be
> >    protected by a magic number and checksum).
> > 
> > This would not work with original MS-DOS created filesystems, possibly
> > coexisting on a dual use harddisk or inserted into the floppy disk,
> > would it?
> 
> No, it wouldn't, fsck would either always or never run on such
> filesystems. But creating a new filesystem is not an extremely
> complicated operation, is it?
> 

I think the objection was for filesystems created in MS-DOS and populated
with files under it.  In that case you wouldn't want to run newdosfs over
it.