From: noemail@basdxcqvbe.com   
      
   On Fri, 31 Dec 2021 04:22:24 -0500   
   Rod Pemberton  wrote:   
      
   > On Mon, 20 Dec 2021 16:17:40 +0000   
   > James Harris  wrote:   
      
   > > So far I have a VBR which reads through the root dir, finds the   
   > > target file, and loads its first sector.   
   >   
   > Why wouldn't you require that the file always be the first entry in   
   > the root dir? ...  That conserves space for more code, right? ...   
   >   
   > Most OSes have special utilities which you're probably aware of that   
   > place system files and structures into their proper locations on the   
   > hard disk.  Yes?   
   >   
   > So, I'd think that a simple utility should be able to switch two   
   > directory entries, rewrite the first directory entry with the target   
   > file, rewrite the other entry also.   
   >   
   > > I have been working on getting that sector to walk the FAT   
   >   
   > Avoiding this "extra" code is obviously the reason other solutions   
   > hard code specific sectors.  Well, it could be extra code, if you   
   > avoided doing this.   
   >   
   > > with mkfs.fat (or mkfs.vfat)   
   >   
   > From Linux for FAT16, I had to do something like:   
   > (I'm unsure if this is complete ...)   
   >   
   > ms-sys /dev/sdc   
   > mkfs.vfat -v -F 16 /dev/sdc1   
   > ms-sys -6 /dev/sdc1   
   >   
   >   
      
   Oops, that's not complete ...   
      
   dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdc count=16470 bs=512   
   fdisk /dev/sdc   
      
   /* now the stuff above */   
      
   The options used for Linux fdisk were: c n p 1 a t e w   
      
   That was for 16470 sectors for 8MB FAT16.   
      
   For a floppy, count=1440.   
      
   Just an FYI, I'm not sure why I was using fdisk with a floppy   
   image/disk, but the Linux fdisk options I used were: n p 2 t 11 w.   
      
   If you're not familiar with Linux fdisk, you'll have to work through   
   those Linux fdisk options on your own, as I think some of them required   
   inputting information, like partition size or starting track number,   
   etc.   
      
   FAT32 was more convoluted.   
      
      
   --   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)