Re: Formatting VFAT so I can use files bigger as 4 GB

Op woensdag 14 sep 2011 10:14 CEST schreef Eef Hartman:

If I remember correctly there was a way in Linux to format a VFAT
partition so you can use files bigger as 4 GB, but I can not find how
to do this. Am I wrong that this is possible with Linux? If not: how
can I do this?

You can not do this (at all!): the directory entries of VFAT filesystems
have a 32-bit value for the SIZE of the file, so filesize is restricted
to 2^32 (-1, as it starts at 0), which is 4 GB (-1, again).
What you're confusing it with is that mkdosfs can create VFAT fs'es
of which the TOTAL size can be more then 4 GB, not the individual
files themselves.

Okay, then I confused things.


To support files > 4 GB you need to reformat it as either NTFS or
one of the Linux filesystems, like ext3
The former (NTFS) is best done under M$-Windows itself, there IS
a mkntfs command, but getting all the parameters rights isn't all
that trivial (especially the "advanced options").

Anyway, VFAT is anything but efficient on filesystems THAT large,
so M$-Windows itself restricts VFAT usage to at most 2 GB fs'es.

I use an USB stick as a ‘WinTransfer’. Then is VFAT the best option I
think. I wanted to use this with truecrypt. When using the complete
stick you need root access, so that is why I wanted to work with a
file. But when I want to make a container of 4 GB it is not allowed.
Well let just work with a 3.5 GB container. (Or 3.9 GB.)

I can of-course look at the NTFS option.

--
Cecil Westerhof
Senior Software Engineer
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/cecilwesterhof
.

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