Apologies if this has been discussed. I don't want anyone else to get
burned, and I just noticed that my linux-kernel subscription was gone.
Recently, mount has been telling me it can't find the NLS code page
for my /msdos partition. I ignored the problem, but apparently that
was a bad idea. I thought scandisk had gone bananas, until I realized
that a) I haven't run scandisk or even booted into Win/DOS for a week or
two, and b) scandisk doesn't use names like FSCK0000.BIN.
a0.dat ahdw b1.dat bk bootlog.prv
bootlog.txt cd cfxy.zip changes command.com
config.bak config.dos config.qb config.sys config.win
copying cwsdpmi.swp detlog.old detlog.txt dm2
dos dospath edit.com exc1.xls exc2.xls
files format.com fsck0000.bin fsck0001.dos fsck0002.bin
fsck0003.drv fsck0007.doc fsck0008.doc fsck0009.log fsck0010
fsck0011.bak fsck0013.old fsck0014.bat fsck0015.txt fsck0016.qb
fsck0017.zip fsck0018.txt fsck0019.lsm fsck0020.rt fsck0021.asm
fsck0022.asm fsck0023.asm fsck0024.asm fsck0025 fsck0026.asm
fsck0027.s fsck0028.c gaga.txt goof.y i
iaccess info initrd.tgz initrd.txt io.sys
linux-i linux.bat loadlin.asm loadlin.exe lodlin
maco manual.txt mouse mps mscdex.exe
msdos.--- msdos.bak msdos.sys net netlog.txt
osbs params.doc q q2.2q readme.1st
sb16 sbcd.sys suhdlog.--- suhdlog.dat system.1st
system.new test.par test.rtf ultima8 user.new
util viewer vmlinuz vu wc2.cfg
winword world.exe zip ~qtwtmp.tmp
Anyway, it blew away windows and a lot of other directories/files by
renaming them to the same names (apparently), all in the automatic
fsck mounting procedure. I am not sure when this started, but the
windows directory worked from wine until sometime this past week.
Note that the directory is always mounted read only, and the kernel
has not changed recently - fsck is dated as April 97, but
/sbin/dosfsck is Jan 9, so it must have been what changed.
I think the kernel/fsck should be careful about mounting a filesystem
or checking one if it doesn't have the code pages. What exactly is
the current policy? I think the behavior I am describing is bad under
any circumstances.
Anyway, I've taken win/dos out of mounting/fstab for now, and am
upgrading/recompiling to get rid of this behavior by adding more
codepages as soon as I can get a compile to finish.
--kmb203@psu.edu----------------Debian/GNU--1.3---Linux--2.1.71---
A computer lets you make more mistakes faster than any other
invention, with the possible exceptions of handguns and Tequilla.
-- Mitch Ratcliffe