Re: FAT-filesystem EOF marker problem

["H. Peter Anvin" <hpa@zytor.com>]

Followup to:  <3D8D556B.4D3BF8B7@verizon.net>
By author:    "Randy.Dunlap" <randy.dunlap@verizon.net>
In newsgroup: linux.dev.fs.devel
> 
> Windows (ME version at least) writes 0xfff for a FAT12 EOF marker.
> mtools writes 0xfff for a FAT12 EOF marker.
> Linux (v)fat filesystem writes 0xff8 for a FAT12 EOF marker.
> (Yes, I know that 0xff8 is a valid FAT12 EOF marker.)
> 

Valid, perhaps (the official specification is fuzzy on that subject to
say the least), but 0xfff is the standard one and what DOS uses.

The official spec states:

Note that the cluster number whose cluster entry in the FAT contains
the EOC mark is allocated to the file and is also the last cluster
allocated to the file. Microsoft operating system FAT drivers use the
EOC value 0x0FFF for FAT12, 0xFFFF for FAT16, and 0x0FFFFFFF for FAT32
when they set the contents of a cluster to the EOC mark. There are
various disk utilities for Microsoft operating systems that use a
different value, however.

	-hpa
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