How to read exFAT SD card in Puppy 571 the easy way

[jfj]

Hello

Using Precise puppy as my main private os, I'm freshly registered on the forum. I'm very grateful for the creators of puppylinux and all the contributors.


Precise puppy linux on my lenovo x200 cares for all I need as a computer (many thanks to all the contributors), except I cannot read SD Card when exFat formatted : only FAT32 is OK.

I don't have any knowledge with programming, and it took me some time to find a way to read the card.
I didn't find an easy tutorial on the puppy forum.

Finally, I managed to find a way. Very simple and evident... but not for me.
So I thought maybe I could write this tuto, in case others have the same needs I had.


1. First thing, you need to download and install fuse-exfat and exfat-utils from the ubuntu 12 repositories :
fuse-exfat.deb for ubuntu 12 : http://fr.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/poo ... 1_i386.deb

exfat-utils.deb for ubuntu 12 : http://fr.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/poo ... 1_i386.deb

Download the files. Then a left click on the file will open Puppy Package Manager.

After installing fuse-exfat and exfat-utils, if you insert a SD Card exFAT formatted... nothing happen. No drive icon on the desk.

2.To read the exFAT partition, you need to mount it, but not with the same tools as with another formatting.
To be careful (not to mess with other partitions), I created a directory reserved to mount exFAT drive.

2.1. Create a directory : /media/exfat

Then you can mount the exFAT partition. My SD card reader is known by puppy as sdb (easy to determine : simply insert a FAT32 card in it).

2.2. in a console, type : "/sbin/mount.exfat /dev/sdb1 /media/exfat".

Then you can read and write on the SD card in /media/exfat.

3. Unmount the partition. To unmount the partition, in a console, type :"umount /media/exfat".

4. Create desktop shortcuts.
For an easier usage, I created some desktop shortcuts.

4.1. The directory.
Draw and drop /media/exfat on the desk. Change its name or its icon if you like.

4.2. A script to mount exFat partition.
In ~/my-applications/bin, create a new scipt (right click - new - script). Rename it "exfat-mount". Right click on it, then "open as text". On the line 2, write : /sbin/mount.exfat /dev/sdb1 /media/exfat. Save. Draw and drop this file on the desk.

4.3. A script to unmount exFat partition.
Create a new script in ~/my-applications/bin. Rename it : exfat-unmount. On line 2, write : umount /media/exfat. Draw and drop this file on the desk. Change the name and icons of the shortcuts as you like.

A left click on exfat-mount will mount the exfat partition. A left click on the directory shortcut will then access the SD card. A click on exfat-unmount shortcut will unmount the card.

All this is a little awkward. Certainly there is a better way. But it works.

[Flash]

I used GParted to reformat a 64 GB exFAT SD card to NTFS so it would work in both Windows and Puppy.

[Puppus Dogfellow]

I used GParted to reformat a 64 GB exFAT SD card to NTFS so it would work in both Windows and Puppy.

does that affect its capacity? i remember reading the new sdxc sizes were a function of the format more than the hardware, but that was when they first hit the market. is it true? how's the performance of ntfs compared to exfat, f2fs, or ext2/3/4?

[Flash]

I don't know if reformatting to NTFS changed the capacity because I have no idea what the capacity was before I reformatted it. Puppy couldn't read it.

[Puppus Dogfellow]

I used GParted to reformat a 64 GB exFAT SD card to NTFS so it would work in both Windows and Puppy. [...] I don't know if reformatting to NTFS changed the capacity because I have no idea what the capacity was before I reformatted it. Puppy couldn't read it.

you ended up with a drive of about 64gb?

[Flash]

Yes, around 60 GB if I remember right. I've yet to see any kind of flash memory that is actually as big as the nameplate says, no matter what its filesystem.

[Burn_IT]

The capacity will remain the same whatever the format.
Fat 12&16 have practical limits because of the index sizes, but other fs the limits are rather large.

You should be aware that any journalling file system will use up available write cycles a lot quicker.

exFAT is designed specifically to keep the write cycles as low as possible.

Most capacities given by media salesmen are lies as they refer to UNFORMATTED capacity and also use 1000 as a count rather than 1024.

I've seen disks advertised as 100MB and they turn out to be more like 68mb usable in real terms.

[amn87]

I am trying to mount the card in the laptop 's internal card reader. If I run fdisk - l for a FAT32 card its listed as mmcblk0p1. But it does not work for exFAT formatted one. Following this guide I was able to mount my exFAT USB drive. I then just replaced sdc1 with mmcblk01, exact command being "/sbin/mount/exfat /dev/mmcblk0p1 /media/exfat". Is this correct? Running Slacko 6.3.2 x32. TIA!

[Flash]

If you're able to use the exFAT drive, then it must be correct.

It does seem a bit more complicated than it needs to be.

[amn87]

If you're able to use the exFAT drive, then it must be correct.

It does seem a bit more complicated than it needs to be.

I decided to not waste any more time in trying to figure it out and use a USB card reader. Fortunately I remembered that my data card had a card slot which worked out well. Videos seem to stutter every now or then during playback when they should not.
However the bigger issue is whenever I try to copy anything to the card/pen drive, this error message pops up everytime "Copying /mnt/home/Arnova.txt as /media/exfat/Arnova.txt cp: preserving permissions for ‘/media/exfat/Arnova.txt’: Function not implemented Failed to copy '/mnt/home/Arnova.txt' Done There was one error". (I could not figure out how to take a screenshot so just copied the above)
The file be it text or image seems to open just fine though. So I guess I can ignore it? To be on the safe side should I compare checksums or something?