Red Hat Bugzilla – Bug 131398
dosfsck, mkdosfs conflicting results
Last modified: 2007-11-30 17:10:48 EST
Description of problem: dosfsck reports that newly created filesystem (mkdosfs) is in error. If dosfsck is unusable, it should be removed or disabled. If mkdosfs is creating bad filesystems, it should be removed or disabled. Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): dosfstools-2.8-12 How reproducible: Create a dos filesystem on a device, then check it. Steps to Reproduce: 1.mkdosfs a partition 2.dosfsck the partition 3.observe error Actual results: Error Expected results: No error Additional info: Sample run: # mkdosfs /dev/sdf2 mkdosfs 2.8 (28 Feb 2001) # dosfsck /dev/sdf2 dosfsck 2.8, 28 Feb 2001, FAT32, LFN Warning: FAT32 support is still ALPHA. Cluster 608765 out of range (4870146 > 1217333). Setting to EOF. / Contains a free cluster (2). Assuming EOF. FAT32 root dir starts with a bad cluster!
If you happen to have a copy of the appropriate software, you could try scanning a mkdosfs'd filesystem with chkdsk (Win2K/XP) or scandisk (Win98/ME/MS-DOS 7.x). Or you could use Windows or MS-DOS 7.x to format a filesystem, then check it with dosfsck. BTW, it looks like your bug report fails to specify how reproducible the bug is.
Sorry, it's 100% reproducible (I was testing with a 20GB firewire dive). I don't have access to a real Windows system that can access the Firewire drive (the reason I was using mkdosfs/dosfsck), so I can't check to see which is in error.