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mtools.1(3)							   mtools.1(3)

Name
       mtools - utilities to access DOS disks in Unix.

Introduction
       Mtools  is a public domain collection of tools to allow Unix systems to
       manipulate MS-DOS files: read, write, and move around files on  an  MS-
       DOS  filesystem (typically a floppy disk).  Where reasonable, each pro‐
       gram attempts to emulate the MS-DOS equivalent command. However, unnec‐
       essary restrictions and oddities of DOS are not emulated. For instance,
       it is possible to move subdirectories from one subdirectory to another.

       Mtools is  sufficient  to  give	access	to  MS-DOS  filesystems.   For
       instance,  commands  such  as mdir a: work on the a: floppy without any
       preliminary  mounting   or   initialization   (assuming	 the   default
       `/etc/mtools.conf' works on your machine).  With mtools, one can change
       floppies too without unmounting and mounting.

Where to get mtools
       Mtools can be found at the following places (and their mirrors):

	  http://mtools.linux.lu/mtools-3.9.10.tar.gz
	  ftp://www.tux.org/pub/knaff/mtools/mtools-3.9.10.tar.gz
	  ftp://ibiblio.unc.edu/pub/Linux/utils/disk-management/mtools-3.9.10.tar.gz

       Before reporting a bug, make sure that it has not yet been fixed in the
       Alpha patches which can be found at:

	  http://mtools.linux.lu/
	  ftp://www.tux.org/pub/knaff/mtools

       These  patches  are named mtools-version-ddmm.taz, where version stands
       for the base version, dd for the day and mm for the  month.  Due	 to  a
       lack of space, I usually leave only the most recent patch.

       There  is an mtools mailing list at mtools @ tux.org .  Please send all
       bug reports to this list.  You may subscribe to the list by  sending  a
       message	with  'subscribe  mtools @ tux.org' in its body to majordomo @
       tux.org . (N.B. Please remove the spaces around the "@" both  times.  I
       left  them  there  in  order  to	 fool spambots.)  Announcements of new
       mtools versions will also be sent to the list, in addition to the linux
       announce	   newsgroups.	   The	  mailing    list   is	 archived   at
       http://www.tux.org/hypermail/mtools/latest

Common features of all mtools commands
   Options and filenames
       MS-DOS filenames are composed of a drive letter followed by a colon,  a
       subdirectory,  and a filename. Only the filename part is mandatory, the
       drive letter and the subdirectory are  optional.	 Filenames  without  a
       drive letter refer to Unix files. Subdirectory names can use either the
       '/' or '\' separator.  The  use	of  the	 '\'  separator	 or  wildcards
       requires	 the  names  to be enclosed in quotes to protect them from the
       shell. However, wildcards in Unix filenames should not be  enclosed  in
       quotes, because here we want the shell to expand them.

       The  regular  expression	 "pattern  matching" routines follow the Unix-
       style rules.  For example, `*' matches all  MS-DOS  files  in  lieu  of
       `*.*'.	The  archive,  hidden, read-only and system attribute bits are
       ignored during pattern matching.

       All options use the - (minus) as their first character, not / as	 you'd
       expect in MS-DOS.

       Most  mtools commands allow multiple filename parameters, which doesn't
       follow MS-DOS conventions, but which is more user-friendly.

       Most mtools commands allow options that instruct	 them  how  to	handle
       file name clashes. See section name clashes, for more details on these.
       All commands accept the -V flags which prints  the  version,  and  most
       accept  the  -v	flag, which switches on verbose mode. In verbose mode,
       these commands print out the name of the MS-DOS files upon  which  they
       act,  unless  stated otherwise. See section Commands, for a description
       of the options which are specific to each command.

   Drive letters
       The meaning of the drive letters depends on the	target	architectures.
       However,	 on  most  target  architectures,  drive A is the first floppy
       drive, drive B is the second floppy drive (if available), drive J is  a
       Jaz  drive  (if	available), and drive Z is a Zip drive (if available).
       On those systems where the device name is derived from the SCSI id, the
       Jaz drive is assumed to be at Scsi target 4, and the Zip at Scsi target
       5 (factory default settings).  On Linux, both drives are assumed to  be
       the  second  drive on the Scsi bus (/dev/sdb). The default settings can
       be changes using a configuration file (see section  Configuration).

       The drive letter : (colon) has a special meaning. It is used to	access
       image  files which are directly specified on the command line using the
       -i options.

       Example:

	   mcopy -i my-image-file.bin ::file1 ::file2 .

       This copies file1 and file2 from the image file (my-image-file.bin)  to
       the /tmp directory.

   Current working directory
       The mcd command (`mcd') is used to establish the device and the current
       working directory (relative to the MS-DOS  filesystem),	otherwise  the
       default is assumed to be A:/. However, unlike MS-DOS, there is only one
       working directory for all drives, and not one per drive.

   VFAT-style long file names
       This version of mtools supports VFAT style long filenames.  If  a  Unix
       filename is too long to fit in a short DOS name, it is stored as a VFAT
       long name, and a companion short name is generated. This short name  is
       what you see when you examine the disk with a pre-7.0 version of DOS.
	The following table shows some examples of short names:

	  Long name	  MS-DOS name	  Reason for the change
	  ---------	  ----------	  ---------------------
	  thisisatest	  THISIS~1	  filename too long
	  alain.knaff	  ALAIN~1.KNA	  extension too long
	  prn.txt	  PRN~1.TXT	  PRN is a device name
	  .abc		  ABC~1		  null filename
	  hot+cold	  HOT_CO~1	  illegal character

	As  you	 see,  the  following transformations happen to derive a short
       name:

       *      Illegal characters are  replaced	by  underscores.  The  illegal
	      characters are ;+=[]',\"*\\<>/?:|.

       *      Extra dots, which cannot be interpreted as a main name/extension
	      separator are removed

       *      A ~n number is generated,

       *      The name is shortened so as to fit in the 8+3 limitation

	The initial Unix-style file name  (whether  long  or  short)  is  also
       called  the primary name, and the derived short name is also called the
       secondary name.

	Example:

	   mcopy /etc/motd a:Reallylongname

	Mtools creates a VFAT entry for Reallylongname, and uses REALLYLO as a
       short  name.  Reallylongname  is	 the primary name, and REALLYLO is the
       secondary name.

	   mcopy /etc/motd a:motd

	Motd fits into	the  DOS  filename  limits.  Mtools  doesn't  need  to
       derivate	 another  name. Motd is the primary name, and there is no sec‐
       ondary name.

	In a nutshell: The primary name is the long name, if  one  exists,  or
       the short name if there is no long name.

	Although  VFAT	is  much more flexible than FAT, there are still names
       that are not acceptable, even in VFAT. There  are  still	 some  illegal
       characters left (\"*\\<>/?:|), and device names are still reserved.

	  Unix name	  Long name	  Reason for the change
	  ---------	  ----------	  ---------------------
	  prn		  prn-1		  PRN is a device name
	  ab:c		  ab_c-1	  illegal character

	As  you	 see,  the  following transformations happen if a long name is
       illegal:

       *      Illegal characters are replaces by underscores,

       *      A -n number is generated,

   Name clashes
       When writing a file to disk, its long name or short  name  may  collide
       with  an	 already  existing  file or directory. This may happen for all
       commands which create new directory entries, such as mcopy, mmd,	 mren,
       mmove. When a name clash happens, mtools asks you what it should do. It
       offers several choices:

       overwrite
	      Overwrites the existing file. It is not possible to overwrite  a
	      directory with a file.

       rename
	      Renames the newly created file. Mtools prompts for the new file‐
	      name

       autorename
	      Renames the newly created file. Mtools chooses a name by itself,
	      without prompting

       skip   Gives up on this file, and moves on to the next (if any)

       To  chose one of these actions, type its first letter at the prompt. If
       you use a lower case letter, the action	only  applies  for  this  file
       only, if you use an upper case letter, the action applies to all files,
       and you won't be prompted again.

       You may also chose actions (for all files) on the  command  line,  when
       invoking mtools:

       -D o   Overwrites primary names by default.

       -D O   Overwrites secondary names by default.

       -D r   Renames primary name by default.

       -D R   Renames secondary name by default.

       -D a   Autorenames primary name by default.

       -D A   Autorenames secondary name by default.

       -D s   Skip primary name by default.

       -D S   Skip secondary name by default.

       -D m   Ask user what to do with primary name.

       -D M   Ask user what to do with secondary name.

       Note  that for command line switches lower/upper differentiates between
       primary/secondary name whereas  for  interactive	 choices,  lower/upper
       differentiates between just-this-time/always.

       The  primary name is the name as displayed in Windows 95 or Windows NT:
       i.e. the long name if it exists, and the	 short	name  otherwise.   The
       secondary name is the "hidden" name, i.e. the short name if a long name
       exists.

       By default, the user is prompted if the primary name clashes,  and  the
       secondary name is autorenamed.

       If a name clash occurs in a Unix directory, mtools only asks whether to
       overwrite the file, or to skip it.

   Case sensitivity of the VFAT filesystem
       The VFAT filesystem is able to remember the case of the filenames. How‐
       ever, filenames which differ only in case are not allowed to coexist in
       the same directory. For example if you store a file called LongFileName
       on  a VFAT filesystem, mdir shows this file as LongFileName, and not as
       Longfilename. However, if you then try to add LongFilename to the  same
       directory, it is refused, because case is ignored for clash checks.

       The  VFAT  filesystem  allows  to  store	 the case of a filename in the
       attribute byte, if all letters of the filename are the same  case,  and
       if all letters of the extension are the same case too. Mtools uses this
       information when displaying the files, and also to  generate  the  Unix
       filename	 when  mcopying	 to a Unix directory. This may have unexpected
       results when applied to files written using an pre-7.0 version of  DOS:
       Indeed,	the old style filenames map to all upper case. This is differ‐
       ent from the behavior of the old version of mtools which used to gener‐
       ate lower case Unix filenames.

   high capacity formats
       Mtools  supports	 a number of formats which allow to store more data on
       disk as usual. Due to different operating system abilities, these  for‐
       mats  are  not  supported on all OS'es. Mtools recognizes these formats
       transparently where supported.

       In order to format these disks, you need to  use	 an  operating	system
       specific	 tool.	For  Linux,  suitable floppy tools can be found in the
       fdutils package at the following locations~:

	  ftp://www.tux.org/pub/knaff/fdutils/.
	  ftp://ibiblio.unc.edu/pub/Linux/utils/disk-management/fdutils-*

       See the manpages included in  that  package  for	 further  detail:  Use
       superformat to format all formats except XDF, and use xdfcopy to format
       XDF.

     More sectors
       The oldest method of fitting more data on a disk is to use more sectors
       and  more cylinders. Although the standard format uses 80 cylinders and
       18 sectors (on a 3 1/2 high density disk), it is possible to use up  to
       83  cylinders (on most drives) and up to 21 sectors. This method allows
       to store up to 1743K on a 3 1/2 HD disk. However, 21 sector  disks  are
       twice  as  slow as the standard 18 sector disks because the sectors are
       packed so close together that we need to interleave them. This  problem
       doesn't exist for 20 sector formats.

       These formats are supported by numerous DOS shareware utilities such as
       fdformat and vgacopy. In his infinite hybris, Bill Gate$ believed  that
       he  invented  this,  and	 called	 it `DMF disks', or `Windows formatted
       disks'. But in reality, it has already  existed	years  before!	Mtools
       supports these formats on Linux, on SunOs and on the DELL Unix PC.

     Bigger sectors
       By  using bigger sectors it is possible to go beyond the capacity which
       can be obtained by the standard 512-byte sectors. This  is  because  of
       the  sector  header. The sector header has the same size, regardless of
       how many data bytes are in the sector. Thus,  we	 save  some  space  by
       using fewer, but bigger sectors. For example, 1 sector of 4K only takes
       up header space once, whereas 8 sectors of 512 bytes have also 8	 head‐
       ers, for the same amount of useful data.

       This method allows to store up to 1992K on a 3 1/2 HD disk.

       Mtools supports these formats only on Linux.

     2m
       The  2m	format	was originally invented by Ciriaco Garcia de Celis. It
       also uses bigger sectors than usual in order to fit more	 data  on  the
       disk.   However,	 it  uses the standard format (18 sectors of 512 bytes
       each) on the first cylinder, in order to make  these  disks  easyer  to
       handle by DOS. Indeed this method allows to have a standard sized boot‐
       sector, which contains a description of how the rest of the disk should
       be read.

       However,	 the drawback of this is that the first cylinder can hold less
       data than the others. Unfortunately, DOS can only  handle  disks	 where
       each  track  contains  the  same amount of data. Thus 2m hides the fact
       that the first track contains less data by using a  shadow  FAT.	 (Usu‐
       ally,  DOS  stores  the	FAT  in	 two  identical copies, for additional
       safety.	XDF stores only one copy, and it tells DOS that it stores two.
       Thus  the same that would be taken up by the second FAT copy is saved.)
       This also means that your should never use a 2m disk to store  anything
       else than a DOS fs.

       Mtools supports these format only on Linux.

     XDF
       XDF  is	a  high	 capacity  format used by OS/2. It can hold 1840 K per
       disk. That's lower than the best 2m formats, but its main advantage  is
       that  it is fast: 600 milliseconds per track. That's faster than the 21
       sector format, and almost as fast as the standard 18 sector format.  In
       order  to  access  these disks, make sure mtools has been compiled with
       XDF support, and set the use_xdf variable for the drive in the configu‐
       ration  file.  See  section Compiling mtools, and `misc variables', for
       details on how to do this. Fast XDF access is only available for	 Linux
       kernels which are more recent than 1.1.34.

       Mtools supports this format only on Linux.

       Caution / Attention distributors: If mtools is compiled on a Linux ker‐
       nel more recent than 1.3.34, it won't run on an older kernel.  However,
       if  it  has  been compiled on an older kernel, it still runs on a newer
       kernel, except that XDF access is slower. It is recommended  that  dis‐
       tribution  authors  only	 include  mtools  binaries compiled on kernels
       older than 1.3.34 until 2.0 comes out. When 2.0	will  be  out,	mtools
       binaries	 compiled  on  newer  kernels may (and should) be distributed.
       Mtools binaries compiled on kernels older than 1.3.34 won't run on  any
       2.1 kernel or later.

   Exit codes
       All  the	 Mtools commands return 0 on success, 1 on utter failure, or 2
       on partial failure.  All the  Mtools  commands  perform	a  few	sanity
       checks  before going ahead, to make sure that the disk is indeed an MS-
       DOS disk (as opposed to, say an ext2 or minix disk). These  checks  may
       reject  partially corrupted disks, which might otherwise still be read‐
       able. To avoid these checks, set	 the  MTOOLS_SKIP_CHECK	 environmental
       variable	 or the corresponding configuration file variable (see section
       global variables)

   Bugs
       An unfortunate side effect of not guessing the proper device (when mul‐
       tiple  disk  capacities	are  supported) is an occasional error message
       from the device driver.	These can be safely ignored.

       The fat checking code chokes on 1.72 Mb disks mformatted with pre-2.0.7
       mtools. Set the environmental variable MTOOLS_FAT_COMPATIBILITY (or the
       corresponding  configuration  file  variable,  `global  variables')  to
       bypass the fat checking.

See also
       floppyd_installtest mattrib mbadblocks mcd mcopy mdel mdeltree mdir mdu
       mformat minfo mkmanifest mlabel mmd mmount mmove	 mrd  mren  mtoolstest
       mtype

mtools-3.9.10			    02Mar05			   mtools.1(3)
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