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 program attempts  to
       emulate  the  MS-DOS equivalent command. However, unneces­
       sary 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  with­
       out unmounting and mounting.


Where to get mtools

       Mtools  can  be  found  at the following places (and their
       mirrors):

          http://mtools.linux.lu/mtools-3.9.8.tar.gz
          ftp://www.tux.org/pub/knaff/mtools/mtools-3.9.8.tar.gz
          ftp://ibiblio.unc.edu/pub/Linux/utils/disk-management/mtools-3.9.8.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 sub­
       scribe 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.)  Announce­
       ments of new mtools versions will  also  be  sent  to  the

       mailing  list  is  archived  at  http://www.tux.org/hyper­
       mail/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 file­
       name part is mandatory, the drive letter and the subdirec­
       tory 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  wild­
       cards  requires the names to be enclosed in quotes to pro­
       tect them from the shell. However, wildcards in Unix file­
       names  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


   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 direc­
       tory 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 limi­
              tation

        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


           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 secondary 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 direc­
       tory 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 filename

       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)

       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 differen­
       tiates between primary/secondary name whereas for interac­
       tive  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. However, 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 LongFile­
       name to the same directory, it is refused, because case is


       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 display­
       ing 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 different from the behavior of the old
       version  of  mtools which used to generate 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 formats 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 operat­
       ing system specific tool. For Linux, suitable floppy tools
       can be found in the fdutils package at the following loca­
       tions~:

          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  sec­
       tor  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

       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 headers, 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  cylin­
       der, 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.  (Usually,
       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  millisec­
       onds  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

       piling mtools, and `misc variables', for details on how to
       do  this. Fast XDF access is only available for Linux ker­
       nels 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 kernel 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  distribution
       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  ker­
       nels  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
       readable. 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 multiple 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 configura­
       tion 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


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