0. Table of contents:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
0. Table of contents
1. What is this?
2. What is it intended for?
3. How does it work?
4. Remarks
5. So how do I format a FAT32 volume, damn it!?
6. Final words

1. What is this?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
FAT32 Blanker is a tool that generates a file when given some parameters. So it
should be 100% safe by itself for everyone.

2. What is it intended for?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
FAT32 support is somewhat limited in OS/2 world: we have an IFS that allows us
to read/write data from and to FAT32 partitions, but we cannot format them.
FAT32 Blanker somewhat fills this gap, with the help of advanced disk utilities
such as DFSee.

3. How does it work?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Being FAT so simple, formatting a FAT32 volume is as easy as filling the FATs
with zeroes. This very basic concept is everything that lies behind FAT32
Blanker. You give it the parameters that define the partition you'd like to
format, it dumps a new BLANK FAT32 structure in a file. After that, all that
is left to do is get the data in place. I'm not a really experienced
programmer, and what is more important, I won't waste my time writing and
debugging an app to perform low-level read/write operations when there are
already some capable of doing it.

In my particular case, when I have to format a FAT32 volume from OS/2, I use
the excellent DFSee for the dirty work and FAT32 blanker to generate the
'format' data. So I request the partition data via DFSee, pass it along to
F32Blank, and use DFSee again to rewrite the first data sectors of the
partition with the contents of the file generated by F32Blank.

4. Remarks:
~~~~~~~~~~~
When doing such a format, which is performed without the knowledge of the IFS
or the OS itself, you may still be able to read / write data to that partition.
You SHOULD NOT do that without rebooting. This allows the OS to re-mount the
volume on boot and recognize that it is blanked.

In an ideal scenario, you should already be using LVM in your system. This
would allow to hide the volume from OS/2 and remount it after doing this kind
of format. It works everywhere I have tested it.

This kind of format will not take in consideration bad clusters and such stuff,
maybe something like that could be implemented in the future.

5. So how do I format a FAT32 volume, damn it!?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
-Find out the volume relevant data: Heads, Sectors, Starting point and Size
using DFSee
-Feed F32Blank with that data to generate a file with blank FATs suitable
for the volume
-Detach the volume (with LVM it's called 'hide' or similar)
-Use DFSee to overwrite the volume with the file contentns, using "wrim".
-Attach again the volume.
-If after this you can't read/write properly the volume or it appears as not
empty, then you MUST reboot and check it again.
-If you don't like DFSee go and find something else capable of doing the job.

6. Final words:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I know this is a poor excuse for a complete documentation, but first I'd like
to know if this is of use for anyone out there.

In Warpstock Europe 2004 I discovered that some German OS/2 group has included
this utility in their CDs. Good, but if you told me _before_ doing so, I'd have
been much happier to know that someone likes it.

If you have any questions or comments about this, please send some feedback!

Kind regards for all the warpers still alive,

Alfredo Fernndez Daz.
alfredo@netropolis-si.com
