Subject: RE: Putting a disklabel on MSDOS disk (without killing partition)
To: None <netbsd-help@netbsd.org, johnam@mail.kemper.org>
From: Wolfgang Solfrank <ws@tools.de>
List: netbsd-help
Date: 11/30/1998 17:39:38
Hi,

> I ran fdisk (NetBSD) and the partition was unknown.

This implies that you are using version 1.3.2 or earlier.  -current's
fdisk and its i386 kernel do know about FAT32 partitions.

> I even partition a drive into two parts FAT32(Win98) and FFS, I still
> couldn't access the FAT32 partition.

In case you have a FFS partition on the disk, you also have a NetBSD
disklabel there.  In this case you have to have a partition in that
NetBSD disklabel that resembles the FAT partition, independent of
whether it is FAT16 or FAT32.  

> So, after all of that, if NetBSD 1.3.2 supports FAT32, what's the trick?

There are several possiblities:

1. You could disklabel the drive containing the FAT32 partition (which you
apparently already did).  Be sure to include a partition in the label that
resembles the FAT partition, i.e. has the same start and size as the FAT
partition.  Then you should be able to mount this partition.

2. You could compile the utility mbrlabel, that I just added to -current
a few weeks ago.  There is a description in its man page how to mount
a FAT partition using this utility.

3. You could upgrade to -current (or wait for the next release).

Note that in 1.3.2 and earlier there was a bug in the FAT32 support in the
kernel.  You should avoid writing to a FAT32 partition with this version.
So you probably want to mount the partition read-only.

Hope it helps.  (And sorry, that I forgot about the problems with the
partitioning in my earlier mail about the subject :-()

Ciao,
Wolfgang
-- 
ws@TooLs.DE     (Wolfgang Solfrank, TooLs GmbH) 	+49-228-985800