[mkgmap-dev] somewhat OT: garmin oregon disklabel?

Tue Aug 31 03:18:33 BST 2010

On Mon, Aug 30, 2010 at 4:53 PM, Greg Troxel <gdt at ir.bbn.com> wrote:
>
> I just got a garmin oregon 450 (for hacking OSM/mkgmap).  It attaches as
> two disks (internal flash and uSD slot):
> [...]
> But, there is apparently no MBR partition table:
> [...]
> A mac reads the filesystem just fine, but didn't obviously tell me what
> it was.  I hear it works on Linux.
>
> Has anyone managed to read this with free software?  Could they describe
> the type of filesystem and layout, and why there's no MBR partition
> table?

The internal flash in my Oregon 300 is not partitioned but has a
standard VFAT filesystem on the raw drive.  It "just works" on my
Linux systems (Fedora) and the few times that I've plugged it into a
Windows system it has worked just fine there too.

> I can report that the OSM img files I built with mkgmap work pretty
> well; you can just drop osm.img from mkgmap output on the flash in
> Garmin/.  The map display is subdued (vs the harsh but easy to absord
> etrex), and that's making me more inclined to play with TYP files,
> although I lack the Copious Spare Time.

Without using a TYP file some things can be hard to tell apart, for
example buildings from parking lots but it works.  I haven't had the
time to mess with TYP files either.

-- 
Jeff Ollie