Enter . While the name might sound modest, this specific version represents a stable, robust snapshot of one of the most critical tools in the mtools suite. Released to address specific buffer handling and filesystem boundary checks, minfo 1.0.2 remains a gold standard for extracting low-level metadata from MS-DOS (FAT) file systems without ever mounting them.
It is a testament to the Unix philosophy: do one thing, do it well, and do it without side effects . By reading the boot sector directly, interpreting FAT fields accurately, and offering scriptable output, minfo 1.0.2 remains as useful today as the day it was tagged in the GNU mtools repository. minfo 1.0.2
minfo -v /dev/sdb If minfo shows "Video CD" or "No DOS filesystem", you know it's a true corruption. But if minfo shows a valid boot sector with a strange media descriptor (e.g., 0xF8 vs 0xF0), you can fix it by rewriting only the descriptor—not the whole drive. Before cloning a floppy or SD card, capture its geometry: It is a testament to the Unix philosophy:
Unlike standard commands like fdisk or file , which interpret data through the lens of the host OS, minfo reads the raw superblock and boot sector fields directly from the device or disk image. It then translates those binary bytes into human-readable output. But if minfo shows a valid boot sector
| Flag | Description | Example Output | |------|-------------|----------------| | -v | Verbose; prints every boot sector field | "Sector size: 512", "Cluster size: 4096" | | -D | DOS-compatible output; uses = delimiter | "sector_size=512" | | -t | Table format (space-separated, ideal for scripts) | "512 4096 2 512" | | drive: | Target (e.g., a: , c: , or device path) | minfo c: (uses mtools config) |
