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From: Karel Zak <kzak@redhat.com>
To: Mike Fleetwood <mike.fleetwood@googlemail.com>
Cc: util-linux@vger.kernel.org
Subject: Re: fdisk not wiping sector 0 before writing new MBR
Date: Wed, 17 Jul 2019 12:26:53 +0200	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <20190717102653.esdmaidgsjwtypwu@ws.net.home> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <20190717101625.vz657vj5g2ir5gcy@ws.net.home>

On Wed, Jul 17, 2019 at 12:16:28PM +0200, Karel Zak wrote:
> On Thu, Jul 04, 2019 at 10:55:16PM +0100, Mike Fleetwood wrote:
> > Hi,
> > 
> > This is a bit more of a speculative than my other recent one, but I saw
> > this quote in aix.c:
> >     "All fdisk-like programs has to properly wipe the first sector.
> >     Everything other is a bug."
> >
> > Using fdisk to create an MBR over the top of a whole disk FAT32 (and
> > probably FAT16) file system doesn't clear any of the FAT32 boot record
> > (aka super block).  Blkid and wipefs report this as just an MBR, but
> > because the boot record is intact, GNU parted reports this still as a
> > whole disk FAT32 file system.
> 
> This is bug. MBR probing code in fdisk is weak and it does not check for 
> false positives like blkid, so FAT32 is interpreted as MBR and the bootbits
> are not wiped (fdisk wipes first sector only if it creates a new
> partition table).

Ah, I've forgot... it's fixed now :-)

    Karel


-- 
 Karel Zak  <kzak@redhat.com>
 http://karelzak.blogspot.com

      reply	other threads:[~2019-07-17 10:26 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 3+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2019-07-04 21:55 fdisk not wiping sector 0 before writing new MBR Mike Fleetwood
2019-07-17 10:16 ` Karel Zak
2019-07-17 10:26   ` Karel Zak [this message]

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