On 14/12/20 05:41, Thomas Mueller wrote: > Excerpt from Michael: > >> Right, on UEFI MoBos the ESP partition used by the UEFI firmware to locate >> and >> run *.EFI executables must be FAT32. Such .EFI executables stored on the >> ESP >> may be OS boot managers/loaders, or other UEFI compatible applications. The >> boot manager loaded by UEFI is then left to its own mechanisms (boot loader >> and fs drivers) to load whatever fs the kernel image resides on. > > Is it necessary for the ESP to be FAT32, as opposed to FAT16 or FAT12? > > What happens if the ESP is formatted FAT12 or FAT16? > I think the spec actually says it must comply with a specific version of the FAT definition. Not sure which version, but that does specify all three FAT layouts, so all three are acceptable. Look at mjg's blog for more detail, I guess.
That protects against updates to the spec making incompatible changes, but doesn't protect against clueless manufacturers not following the spec - "works with Windows" is so often the de-facto spec. Cheers, Wol
