[CentOS] Can't mount FAT32 partition

[Phil Schaffner]

On Mon, 2005-08-29 at 11:18 -0600, dan.trainor wrote:
> Dave Gutteridge wrote:
> > 
> >> /dev/hda1 /mnt/windows vfat rw,noauto,user,uid=512,gid=1002 1 2
> >>                                                            ^ ^
> >> really really bad idea -------------------------------------|-|
> >>  
> >>
> > If you say so. Did I mention I was a newbie? I'm a newbie. I only put in
> > the 1 and 2 because that's what another guy on this list told me to do.
> > I have no idea what they mean.
> > 
> >> filesystem does not need to be dumped (field 5) and not need fsck'ing
> >> (field 6) - it is vfat right?
> >>
> > If vfat is the same as fat32, then yes.
> > 
> > I'm a little scared to go ahead with this, because I don't want to lose
> > any more data. If I change the last two numbers, will I at least be safe
> > from having Linux try and make changes to the hard drive?
> > 
> > Dave
> 
> Hello, Dave -
> 
> man fstab:
> 
> "The sixth field, (fs_passno), is used by the fsck(8) program to
> determine the order in which filesystem checks are done at reboot time.
>  The root filesystem should  be  specified  with  a fs_passno  of  1,
> and other filesystems should have a fs_passno of 2.  Filesystems within
> a drive will be checked sequentially, but filesystems on different
> drives will be checked at the same time to utilize parallelism available
> in the hardware.  If the sixth field is not present or zero, a value of
> zero is returned and fsck will assume that the filesystem does not  need
> to be checked."
> 
> You wouldn't want to fsck a vfat drive.  I've never done it before.  I
> don't even know if it's *possible*, even if there was a way to force it.
>  Hope that helps.

It is certainly possible, and that's how it works on my system (thus the
sample fstab line); however, should have noted that dosfsck is alpha.
Works-for-me but YMMV.  Sorry 'bout that Dave.

# fsck /dev/hda2
fsck 1.35 (28-Feb-2004)
dosfsck 2.8, 28 Feb 2001, FAT32, LFN
Warning: FAT32 support is still ALPHA.
/dev/hda2: 39084 files, 1281584/4094597 clusters
# rpm -qif `which dosfsck`
Name        : dosfstools                   Relocations: (not relocatable)
Version     : 2.8                               Vendor: CentOS
Release     : 15                            Build Date: Mon 21 Feb 2005 07:17:49 PM EST
Install Date: Sat 18 Jun 2005 09:25:02 PM EDT      Build Host: bhrama.build.karan.org
Group       : Applications/System           Source RPM: dosfstools-2.8-15.src.rpm
Size        : 69390                            License: GPL
Signature   : DSA/SHA1, Sat 26 Feb 2005 03:34:40 PM EST, Key ID a53d0bab443e1821
Packager    : Karanbir Singh <kbsingh at centos.org>
Summary     : Utilities for making and checking MS-DOS FAT filesystems on Linux.
Description :
The dosfstools package includes the mkdosfs and dosfsck utilities,
which respectively make and check MS-DOS FAT filesystems on hard
drives or on floppies.

Phil