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Overcoming the Windows FAT32 32GB limit (ImDisk)

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#1 steve6375

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Posted 07 October 2015 - 08:43 AM

The Windows .cmd batch script for Easy2Boot, MakePartImage.cmd, uses ImDisk to create a backing file and format it as FAT32. Recently someone tried the script using a large (33GB) ISO file as the source and hit the problem of Windows/ImDisk not being able to format the raw 33GB ramdisk volume as FAT32.

 

I was wondering what the easiest way would be to modify my script to overcome this problem?

 

The same user contacted me to say that he used Arsenal Recon image mounter to mount a 33GB ImDisk raw volume and then managed to format it using the 3rd party tool AOMEI.

 

What I would like however, is to not install any driver (if possible), or at least only install it when required and prompt the user first, and then format the volume from within the script automatically. I also need to be able to distribute it legally within the MPI download, etc.

 

Any suggestions?



#2 steve6375

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Posted 07 October 2015 - 08:56 AM

Update:

It seems the FAT32 formatter  commandline version works on ImDisk volumes directly.

(The GUI version also works but I won't be using that).


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#3 steve6375

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Posted 07 October 2015 - 10:28 AM

 @olof - The source is provided and is GPL - would be nice if ImDisk could add it in  and use it if  format parameters were  FAT32 and size > 32GB  rather than just fail...   :whistling:



#4 Wonko the Sane

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Posted 07 October 2015 - 12:20 PM

OT (and not exactly what you asked for) but maybe you could use an alternate method to create a volume image.

Though I haven't tested it on bigger than 32 Gb volumes, I see no reasons why mformat.exe (from the Mtools package):

http://reboot.pro/fi...ile/267-mtools/

http://reboot.pro/to...winimageimdisk/

should not work, as the 32 Gb size limitation for FAT32 is an artificial one introduced by Microsoft since 2K or XP.

Using the mtools it is not really needed to actually mount the image (or install the IMDISK driver, unless it is needed for other reasons), i.e. the image generation, formatting and copying files to it can normally be done "offline".

 

:duff:

Wonko







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