dump.exfat

Print on-disk information for a given filesystem

$ dump.exfat [/dev/sdXY]

dump.exfat [options] device

device
    Specifies the block device containing the exFAT filesystem to be examined (e.g., /dev/sdb1).

-v
    Verbose output. Provides more detailed information about the exFAT filesystem.

The dump.exfat command is a utility in Linux used to display detailed information about an exFAT filesystem.
It presents a human-readable summary of the filesystem's structure, metadata, and key parameters. This tool allows users and administrators to examine the properties of an exFAT volume such as volume label, cluster size, number of clusters, free space, and other important attributes.
It's particularly useful for diagnosing filesystem issues, understanding storage utilization, and verifying the integrity of exFAT volumes. It's essentially a debugging and informational tool and does not modify the filesystem.
The output is usually piped to other tools or inspected manually.

Requires root privileges to access block devices directly.
Only supports exFAT filesystems.

The output of dump.exfat includes vital information such as volume label, filesystem version, cluster size, number of clusters, free space, FAT offset, and data region offset.
Understanding these parameters is crucial for debugging filesystem-related issues or recovering data.
Refer to the exFAT specification for a complete definition of all these fields.

The dump.exfat command is part of the exfatprogs package, which provides utilities for working with exFAT filesystems in Linux.
The exFAT filesystem gained prominence as a successor to FAT32, particularly for removable storage devices due to its support for larger file sizes and volumes. The exfatprogs package was developed to address the need for robust exFAT support in the Linux ecosystem, including tools for creating, checking, and debugging exFAT filesystems. Its development aimed to provide users with reliable tools to manage and interact with exFAT formatted devices.

mkfs.exfat(8), fsck.exfat(8), mount(8), umount(8)