Re: The pendrives cannot be formatted with fat32, why?

robertwessel2@xxxxxxxxx wrote:
> If the device has fewer than 65525 (yes, 65525) clusters, it *cannot*
> be formatted FAT32. If it has 65526 or more clusters, it *must* be
> formatted FAT32.

This argument has a rather fatal flaw: devices don't have clusters,
they have sectors.

Clusters are a property of (some) filesystems, so their number cannot
possibly be used as an argument in the decision between different
types of file system.

There's actually a considerable intermediate range of sizes (roughly
from 256 MiB to 2 GiB) that could be formatted equally well as FAT16
and FAT32 --- *in principle*. The catch is that at least one widely
used OS flat-out refuses to give the user this choice, because its
makers firmly subscribe to the "we know best what's best for you"
school of thought.

--
Hans-Bernhard Broeker (broeker@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx)
Even if all the snow were burnt, ashes would remain.
.

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