FAT32 File System Specs

[traderv]

Can anyone direct me to a source for the FAT32 file system layout? I need
to do some data recovery on a deleted partition.

traderv

 

[traderv]

Al,

Interesting suggestion. I won an early retail Linux but have never loaded
it. Used to program Unix, and bought two Unix imitations during the DOS
days. Neither was satisfactory. Have become much more of an application
user in receent years, but still have and use the MK version of SHELL and
all the wonderful shell tools for for scripting.

Maybe your suggestion has stirred my curiosity enough to try Linux.

Many thanks.

traderv

 

[traderv]

Eric,

Thanks for the suggestion. This may be the first time that I have found a
use for the RK tools. I don't know if I have a copy RK or whether I
somehow/somewhere downloaded some of the tools. I'll look.

traderv
\

 

[traderv]

Eric,

Got focused on the RK comment and forgot to thank you for this good
reference.

Thank you,

traderv

 

[Al Dykes]

Can anyone direct me to a source for the FAT32 file system layout? I need
to do some data recovery on a deleted partition.

traderv

Well, Linux reads (and writes) FAT32, and all the sources and build tools
are availalble online.

 

[Eric Gisin]

I use Resource Kit dskprobe for editing. Search microsoft.com for this paper:

Microsoft Extensible Firmware Initiative

FAT32 File System Specification

FAT: General Overview of On-Disk Format

 

[Al Dykes]

Al,

Interesting suggestion. I won an early retail Linux but have never loaded
it. Used to program Unix, and bought two Unix imitations during the DOS
days. Neither was satisfactory. Have become much more of an application
user in receent years, but still have and use the MK version of SHELL and
all the wonderful shell tools for for scripting.

Maybe your suggestion has stirred my curiosity enough to try Linux.

The easiest way to start is to go to www.linuxiso.org and pick
knoppix. Download the image, burn it, and boot it.

It runs off the CD and by default mounts (read only) all the FAT,
FAT32 and NTFS partition it finds. Using this as a tool to recover
data from unbootable nt/w2k/XP machines is easy. This of course
requires undamaged partitions. Done it a bunch of times. (the machine
needs 256mb memory, more is better)

For someone looking to hack file systems I'd suggest the debian disto.
You might look at Gentoo which is 100% build-from-source. When you go
thru the bootstrap proceedure everything on your PC has been compiled
by you, including the compilers.

You can set up an old Pentium with Linux. Once it's running
put the disk you want to analyze in as a secondary.