USB Key Compatibility?

[Walter Dnes]

On Mon, Dec 18, 2006 at 12:21:11AM -0500, Christopher Browne wrote
> I've got a USB key I'm trying to troubleshoot for a friend.  It's a
> 4GB unit; seems pretty generic.
> 
> The desire is to have it "play" with both Windows and Mac systems.  I
> haven't got Windows handy; what I'm finding is that on anything
> Unix-like (Linux, FreeBSD, MacOS), data seems to spontaneously corrupt
> upon unmounting.

  The only common filesystem that linux/Mac/Windows can all read *AND
WRITE TO* is some version of FAT.

  FAT16 *USUALLY* has a 2 gig max *PARTITION* size, although some weird
implementations can go to 4 gigs.  An implementation that only handles 2
gig FAT16 partitions will usually choke when it runs into a larger FAT16
partition.  The max filesize limit is always 2 gigs.  Check what file
system the various machines think they're writing to.

  FAT32 has a 4 gig max *FILE* size and 2 terabyte max *PARTITION* size.
Win2K and onwards has a deliberately-crippled version of fdisk that will
only create a max 32 gig FAT32 partition.  You can create a a larger
FAT32 partition with Win98, or WinME, or Magic Partition, or even linux.
Win2K and XP will happily read and write to that larger FAT32 partition,
but they will refuse to create one.  Just what you'd expect from "our
favourite monopolist".

-- 
Walter Dnes <waltdnes-SLHPyeZ9y/tg9hUCZPvPmw at public.gmane.org> In linux /sbin/init is Job #1
My musings on technology and security at http://techsec.blog.ca
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