Using alternate File Allocation Tables in FAT32

[James Wilkinson]

I wrote:
> You might like to investigate
> mount -vt ext3 -o sb=131072 /dev/hdb1 /misc/
> which should use an alternative superblock.

Anne Wilson wrote:
> Is anything similar possible on a fat32 drive?  I need to try to rescue data 
> from a 'foreign' drive.  'fdisk -l' lists it as a single large fat32 
> partition, but trying to mount it as 'mount -t vfat /dev/hdb1 /mnt/temp' 
> tells me that there is a bad superblock.

OK, I'm stumped. FAT32 filesystems are supposed to maintain an
alternative file allocation table, but I can't find any way of actually
using it. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File_Allocation_Table#Design
for more details.

It may well be that the data at the start of the FAT32 partition is
toast, so Linux won't even try mounting it.

Alternatively, it may well be that Linux *has* already tried using it,
but it's also toast. (FAT32 keeps its file allocation tables together,
where they're more susceptible to disk problems. ext2 keeps them
scattered through this disk.)

Sorry,

James.

-- 
E-mail address: james | The attitude ``The computer said so, so it must be
@westexe.demon.co.uk  | right'' is always amusing to the people who program
                      | them.
                      |     -- Geoff Lane