Improved FAT driver for Mac OS X Tiger

This is a slightly modified version of the FAT driver in Mac OS X 10.4.11. It differs from the original in that it supports file creation times (as opposed to only file modification times). This was accomplished by copying and pasting a block of code from the Leopard (Mac OS X 10.5.8) version of the driver.

Disclaimer

If you choose to use this driver, you are doing so at your own risk. I am not responsible for any data loss or other unfortunate events that may be a result of using this driver.

Download

Installation

  1. Unmount all mounted FAT volumes.
  2. In the Terminal, execute:
    cd /System/Library/Extensions
    sudo kextunload msdosfs.kext
    sudo mv msdosfs.kext msdosfs.kext.old
  3. Place the downloaded msdosfs.kext into /System/Library/Extensions.
  4. In the Terminal, execute:
    sudo chown -R root:wheel msdosfs.kext
    sudo kextload msdosfs.kext

You can then mount back any FAT volumes. A restart is not required.

Uninstallation

Uninstallation is the reverse of installation.

  1. Unmount all mounted FAT volumes.
  2. In the Terminal, execute:
    cd /System/Library/Extensions
    sudo kextunload msdosfs.kext
    sudo rm -rf msdosfs.kext
    sudo mv msdosfs.kext.old msdosfs.kext

Compilation instructions

If you wish to compile the driver yourself, follow these steps:

  1. Install Xcode 2.5 if you don't have it.
  2. Download the original Tiger version of the driver and uncompress it.
  3. Copy my modified files into msdosfs-89.14/msdosfs.kextproj/msdosfs.kmodproj.
  4. Open msdosfs.pbproj. Xcode will ask you whether you want to upgrade the project file; do so.
  5. From the Project menu's Set Active Target submenu, choose msdosfs (not msdosfs (Aggregate)).
  6. From the Project menu's Set Active Build Configuration submenu, choose Deployment.
  7. From the Build menu, choose Build.

The project should compile successfully (with some warnings) and the driver will appear in the build/Deployment folder in the project folder.

Links

First published on .
Last updated on .

Table of contents

Contact me