Steve,

Do you have to read FAT32 for compatibility reasons, or are you just trying to make a file system to store stuff in. FAT32 is somewhat simple untill you get start using long filenames (or lower case filenames.) The directory storage for long filenames is a real kluge for backward compatibility with 8.3 filenames.

If you just need any old filesystem, here are some questions that will determine what filesystem is best:

* Do you need sub-directories?
* What max disk size will be used?
* Maximum number of files?
* What is the common size of a file?
* Do you need long filenames or case sensative filenames?
* How much memory do you have for directory caches and allocation tables?
* How fast does it need to be--for file creation, appending (writes), reads, opens, and deletes.
* What do you need to be compatible with?
* Do you need to partition the disk?
* Do you need some sort of filesystem fixer such as chkdsk? This is much more complex than the normal filesystem code--and memory intensive.

<>< Lance.