FAT16 boot record error

Windows 7 requires that a FAT block device contains at least 8 sectors. Define your device as having 8 sectors and return contant value (0s) whenever Windows attempts to read any sector above the implmented ones.

Actually, FAT16 requires the device to have at least 4096 clusters (otherwise it'd be FAT12), so the device better had a few more sectors than that (boot record, FAT, root directory, plus data clusters).

Stefan

Actually the boundary between FAT12 and FAT16 is 4085* clusters - 4085 and fewer must be formatted FAT12, 4086 and higher must be FAT16 (until you get to 65526 clusters, at which point it's FAT32).

In any event, given the vast number of incorrect implementations, you should avoid formatting any volume with a number of clusters within about 16 of the above limits, either by adjusting the reserved area size or the cluster size.

Anyway, the definitive reference for FAT:

• *not* 4095/4096

Actually the boundary between FAT12 and FAT16 is 4085* clusters - 4085 and fewer must be formatted FAT12, 4086 and higher must be FAT16 (until you get to 65526 clusters, at which point it's FAT32).

In any event, given the vast number of incorrect implementations, you should avoid formatting any volume with a number of clusters within about 16 of the above limits, either by adjusting the reserved area size or the cluster size.

Anyway, the definitive reference for FAT:

• *not* 4095/4096

(apologies if this is a double post - newsreader was being weird)

Actually the boundary between FAT12 and FAT16 is 4085* clusters - 4085 and fewer must be formatted FAT12, 4086 and higher must be FAT16 (until you get to 65526 clusters, at which point it's FAT32).

In any event, given the vast number of incorrect implementations, you should avoid formatting any volume with a number of clusters within about 16 of the above limits, either by adjusting the reserved area size or the cluster size.

Anyway, the definitive reference for FAT:

• *not* 4095/4096

Thank you for your answers.

I will try to put more clusters in order to be pretty much higher than the FAT16 low limits and I will have a look at the linked document.

I will come back if I still have problems with my device being recognized by Windows.

Regards, Johann

--------------------------------------- Posted through

How big is the "disk" pretending to be? Small disks can only be FAT12, you can not create an arbitrary sized FAT16 disk. There are set rules in cluster count for each FAT type as the number of clusters is the only way to determine the FAT type, see: