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10.3: Create a case-sensitive HFS+ disk
Authored by: vpd22 on Oct 28, '03 09:26:33AM

You can do this in Terminal:
sudo diskutil eraseVolume "Case-sensitive HFS+" newvolname volume
man diskutil for more info

the newfs_hfs -s command in Terminal (-s is "case-sensitive flag") does not seem to work.

This is all in Apple's Command Line reference at:
http://www.apple.com/server/pdfs/Command_Line.pdf

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10.3: Create a case-sensitive HFS+ disk
Authored by: Gigacorpse on Oct 28, '03 10:45:33AM

Thanks. What I don't see is how I can make use of this when installing to a hard disk.



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10.3: Create a case-sensitive HFS+ disk
Authored by: vladimus on Oct 28, '03 02:42:48PM

What you could do, if you have another Mac with FireWire, is boot the machine you want to install to under target disk mode (hold "T" at startup), mount it on another Mac, then format it using this hint.

If you only have an external FireWire drive (or an iPod), you could install the OS on the external drive, then boot from the external drive (hold "option" at startup) to format your internal drive. Obviously, that's a last resort.



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10.3: Create a case-sensitive HFS+ disk
Authored by: macmath on Oct 28, '03 02:31:31PM

Thanks for the link to the command line reference at Apple!



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10.3: Create a case-sensitive HFS+ disk
Authored by: MadCabbit on Jan 22, '04 01:57:58AM

The -s flag does work, but using newfs_hfs only will not show it as being case-sensitive in diskutil/Disk Utility. I have used the -s flag and tested it, and it works. Try creating a volume that way, then mount it, and attempt to create files named "test" and "TEST" It will let you do this in a case-sensitive FS, but not a case-insensitive one.

diskutil is where I started when looking for information about case-sensitivity initially months ago. This led me to /System/Library/FileSystems/hfs.fs/Contents/Info.plist, to the part the diskutil example uses:


     <key>Case-sensitive HFS+</key>
     <dict>
          <key>FSFormatArguments</key>
          <string>-s -J</string>
          <key>FSFormatContentMask</key>
          <string>Apple_HFSX</string>
          <key>FSFormatExecutable</key>
          <string>../../../../../../sbin/newfs_hfs</string>
          ...
          <key>FSName</key>
          <string>Mac OS Extended (Case-sensitive/Journaled)</string>
          ...
     </dict>

(non-relevant parts, such a FS size limits, stripped out for clarity)

This information led me to hfs_fs -s -J in the first place, since it what diskutil calls to actually create the volume.

It appears, based on that last , that diskutil stores FSName somewhere that it (and the GUI equivalent) uses to identify it as case-sensitive. However, it appears that they are otherwise the same. Doing a "Get Info" on a volume created each way reports "Mac OS (Extended)" as the Format regardless. mount also shows the format as "(local, journaled)" in both cases, so outside of diskutil/Disk Utility, the OS seems to see the volume as HFS+ journaled, but is unable to determine that its case-sensitive.

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