> > Why would you want to use mtools when you can just mount the msdos
> > filesystem?

> Well, I was not the original poster, but I was leery of doing so
> because the CAVEATS line on the man page for mount_msdos says:

> "The msdos filesystem is not known to work reliably with filesystems
>  created by versions of MS-DOS later than version 3.3"

> I am not sure what "not known to work reliably" boils down to, but
> if perchance it involves roaching my msdos filesystem (which I need
> for work related things), then I just cannot afford to gamble with
> it.

> Virtually all of the world that has to suffer with some form of DOS,
> suffers with a form later than 3.3, so mtools would be an attractive
> option till this bug, whatever it is, gets fixed.

Just my two bits worth. A while ago I spent some time hacking at
mtools-2.0.7 with some patches (netbsd support, and c:/d: support)
to give it autoconf support and generally fix up the code. It's still
sitting in my source tree at home, waiting for the final fixes...

These final (as yet nonexistant?) fixes are correct support for
partitions >32MB on a machine running dos 5.0 or 6.x. Both msdosfs
and mtools have (had?) problems with DOSBIG partitions, and in the
end I resorted to having a partition <32MB to use mtools or msdosfs
on.

Now, maybe Charles Hannum's mods to the -current tree (which isn't
suppable but I've been reading the src changes) may fix some of the
problems, but I just gave up trying to get mtools usable on hard
disks. And, the problems that the man pages for msdosfs refer to
are most likely >32MB partition support...