From:   "Robert de Bath" <rd103978@home-box.demon.co.uk>
Date:   Sat, 31 Jul 1999 10:07:01 +0100 (BST)
To:     Linux Kernel Mailing List <linux-kernel@vger.rutgers.edu>
Subject: Your backup is unsafe!

DONT PANIC! It's only Win9X, nothing serious.

The problem is that you don't see the whole name on a VFAT partition.
As you'll know there are two parts to the name the 8+3 part and the
fakename but you can only see one bit at a time.

Suppose you do something like this:

mount -t vfat /dev/hda1 /dos
tar cvf /dev/rmt0 /dos

This will save the fakename but not the 8+3 name, if you do a restore
linux will _normally_ regenerate the same 8+3 name, but not always.

"So what" you say, well it's like this; there are LFN programs that store
the 8+3 name not the long one, for example MS Office. If everything has
gone just right and the 8+3 name of one of the few bad files changes the
restore will fail for no visable reason.

So I'd like to put in a feature request to have a translation mode where
the entire name is visable. Perhaps something like this ...

If no longname use msdos translation
If shortname is "~1 " version of longname use longname
Otherwise use shortname=longname

or perhaps something even more ugly. The aim is obviously that a
backup+restore will preserve _both_ names guarenteed.

If it's combined with "nonumtail" the second rule would be modified to
suit.

BTW: Meantime the only way I've found to be sure you get both names is to
     use the W95 LFN backup program and backup the FS as an msdos not a vfat.

-- 
Rob.                          (Robert de Bath <http://poboxes.com/rdebath>)
                    <rdebath @ poboxes.com> <http://www.cix.co.uk/~mayday>


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