NTFS General Information > The FAT File System > FAT32 Features > Boot Sector and Bootstrap Modifications

FAT32 Features

Boot Sector and Bootstrap Modifications

Table 4-4 Modifications to Boot Sector

Modifications

Description

Reserved Sectors

FAT32 drives contain more reserved sectors than FAT16 or FAT12 drives. The number of reserved sectors is usually 32, but can vary.

Boot Sector Modifications

Because a FAT32 BIOS Parameter Block (BPB), represented by the BPB structure, is larger than a standard BPB, the boot record on FAT32 drives is greater than 1 sector. In addition, there is a sector in the reserved area on FAT32 drives that contains values for the count of free clusters and the cluster number of the most recently allocated cluster. These values are members of the BIGFATBOOTFSINFO structure which is contained within this sector. These additional fields allow the system to initialize the values without having to read the entire file allocation table.

Root Directory

The root directory on a FAT32 drive is not stored in a fixed location as it is on FAT16 and FAT12 drives. On FAT32 drives, the root directory is an ordinary cluster chain. The A_BF_BPB_RootDirStrtClus member in the BPB structure contains the number of the first cluster in the root directory. This allows the root directory to grow as needed. In addition, the BPB_RootEntries member of BPB is ignored on a FAT32 drive.

Sectors Per FAT

The A_BF_BPB_SectorsPerFAT member of BPB is always zero on a FAT32 drive. Additionally, the A_BF_BPB_BigSectorsPerFat and A_BF_BPB_BigSectorsPerFatHi members of the updated BPB provide equivalent information for FAT32 media.

BPB (FAT32)

The BPB for FAT32 drives is an extended version of the FAT16/FAT12 BPB. It contains identical information to a standard BPB, but also includes several extra fields for FAT32 specific information.

This structure is implemented in Windows OEM Service Release 2 and later. 

A_BF_BPB    STRUC
    A_BF_BPB_BytesPerSector       DW    ?
    A_BF_BPB_SectorsPerCluster    DB    ?
    A_BF_BPB_ReservedSectors      DW    ?
    A_BF_BPB_NumberOfFATs         DB    ?
    A_BF_BPB_RootEntries          DW    ?
    A_BF_BPB_TotalSectors         DW    ?
    A_BF_BPB_MediaDescriptor      DB    ?
    A_BF_BPB_SectorsPerFAT        DW    ?
    A_BF_BPB_SectorsPerTrack      DW    ?
    A_BF_BPB_Heads                DW    ?
    A_BF_BPB_HiddenSectors        DW    ?
    A_BF_BPB_HiddenSectorsHigh    DW    ?
    A_BF_BPB_BigTotalSectors      DW    ?
    A_BF_BPB_BigTotalSectorsHigh  DW    ?
    A_BF_BPB_BigSectorsPerFat     DW    ?
    A_BF_BPB_BigSectorsPerFatHi   DW    ?
    A_BF_BPB_ExtFlags             DW    ?
    A_BF_BPB_FS_Version           DW    ?
    A_BF_BPB_RootDirStrtClus      DW    ?
    A_BF_BPB_RootDirStrtClusHi    DW    ?
    A_BF_BPB_FSInfoSec            DW    ?
    A_BF_BPB_BkUpBootSec          DW    ?
    A_BF_BPB_Reserved             DW    6 DUP (?)
A_BF_BPB    ENDS

 

Table 4-5 BPB Members

Member Name

Description

A_BF_BPB_BytesPerSector

The number of bytes per sector.

A_BF_BPB_SectorsPerCluster

The number of sectors per cluster.

A_BF_BPB_ReservedSectors

The number of reserved sectors, beginning with sector 0.

A_BF_BPB_NumberOfFATs

The number of File Allocation Tables.

A_BF_BPB_RootEntries

This member is ignored on FAT32 drives.

A_BF_BPB_TotalSectors

The size of the partition, in sectors.

A_BF_BPB_MediaDescriptor

The media descriptor. Values in this member are identical to standard BPB.

A_BF_BPB_SectorsPerFAT

The number of sectors per FAT.

Note: This member will always be zero in a FAT32 BPB. Use the values from A_BF_BPB_BigSectorsPerFat and A_BF_BPB_BigSectorsPerFatHi for FAT32 media.

A_BF_BPB_SectorsPerTrack

The number of sectors per track.

A_BF_BPB_Heads

The number of read/write heads on the drive.

A_BF_BPB_HiddenSectors

The number of hidden sectors on the drive.

A_BF_BPB_HiddenSectorsHigh

The high word of the hidden sectors value.

A_BF_BPB_BigTotalSectors

The total number of sectors on the FAT32 drive.

A_BF_BPB_BigTotalSectorsHigh

The high word of the FAT32 total sectors value.

A_BF_BPB_BigSectorsPerFat

The number of sectors per FAT on the FAT32 drive.

A_BF_BPB_BigSectorsPerFatHi

The high word of the FAT32 sectors per FAT value.

A_BF_BPBExtFlags

Flags describing the drive. Bit 8 of this value indicates whether or not information written to the active FAT will be written to all copies of the FAT. The low 4 bits of this value contain the 0-based FAT number of the Active FAT, but are only meaningful if bit 8 is set. This member can contain a combination of the following values.

Value

Description

BGBPB_F_ActiveFATMsk (000Fh)

Mask for low four bits.

BGBPB_F_NoFATMirror (0080h)

Mask indicating FAT mirroring state. If set, FAT mirroring is disabled. If clear, FAT mirroring is enabled.

 

Bits 4-6 and 8-15 are reserved.

 A_BF_BPB_FS_Version

The file system version number of the FAT32 drive. The high byte represents the major version, and the low byte represents the minor version.

A_BF_BPB_RootDirStrtClus

The cluster number of the first cluster in the FAT32 drive's root directory.

A_BF_BPB_RootDirStrtClusHi

The high word of the FAT32 starting cluster number.

A_BF_BPB_FSInfoSec

The sector number of the file system information sector. The file system info sector contains a BIGFATBOOTFSINFO structure. This member is set to 0FFFFh if there is no FSINFO sector. Otherwise, this value must be non-zero and less than the reserved sector count.

A_BF_BPB_BkUpBootSec

The sector number of the backup boot sector. This member is set to 0FFFFh if there is no backup boot sector. Otherwise, this value must be non-zero and less than the reserved sector count.

A_BF_BPB_Reserved

Reserved member.

 

BIGFATBOOTFSINFO (FAT32)

Contains information about the file system on a FAT32 volume. This structure is implemented in Windows OEM Service Release 2 and later. 

BIGFATBOOTFSINFO STRUC
    bfFSInf_Sig               DD    ?
    bfFSInf_free_clus_cnt     DD    ?
    bfFSInf_next_free_clus    DD    ?
    bfFSInf_resvd             DD    3 DUP (?)
BIGFATBOOTFSINFO ENDS

 

Table 4-6 BIGFATBOOTFSINFO Members

Member Name

Description

bfFSInf_Sig

The signature of the file system information sector. The value in this member is FSINFOSIG (0x61417272L).

bfFSInf_free_clus_cnt

The count of free clusters on the drive. Set to -1 when the count is unknown.

bfFSInf_next_free_clus

The cluster number of the cluster that was most recently allocated.

bfFSInf_resvd

Reserved member.

 

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