A Mac OS machine leaves dot files such as “.DS_Store” and “._Linux-Mint.iso” when any file is copied, moved or renamed via the Finder. Normally on Linux or Mac OS (and Windows?) these dot files are hidden by file browsers and even command line tools like “ls”.
I had used a Mac to copy about a dozen ISOs to the ExFAT partition, sorted into folders. Ventoy displayed something like this on its boot menu:
._dos-7.iso
._freebsd-12.iso
._freenas-11.3.iso
._linux-mint-x64.iso
._windows10-1909.iso
dos-7.iso
freebsd-12.iso
freenas-11.3.iso
linux-mint-x64.iso
windows10-1909.iso
Since there were more ISOs than this on my drive I had to scroll down to the next page of the boot menu just to see any of the real ISO entries.
These AppleDouble dot-underscore files contain metadata incompatible with non-Mac filesystems, that would normally be stored in a “resource fork” on an HFS/HFS+ or APFS formatted partition, completely hidden to the user. These files can be cleaned manually from a drive with a tool like Onyx, but that would need to be done every single time any ISO file was modified (moved, copied, renamed) on any Mac.
Ideally the solution to this is for Ventoy to ignore and hide any dot files it encounters, regardless of whether or not they end in “.iso”. Just like “ls” does unless you do “ls -a”.
I had used a Mac to copy about a dozen ISOs to the ExFAT partition, sorted into folders. Ventoy displayed something like this on its boot menu:
._dos-7.iso
._freebsd-12.iso
._freenas-11.3.iso
._linux-mint-x64.iso
._windows10-1909.iso
dos-7.iso
freebsd-12.iso
freenas-11.3.iso
linux-mint-x64.iso
windows10-1909.iso
Since there were more ISOs than this on my drive I had to scroll down to the next page of the boot menu just to see any of the real ISO entries.
These AppleDouble dot-underscore files contain metadata incompatible with non-Mac filesystems, that would normally be stored in a “resource fork” on an HFS/HFS+ or APFS formatted partition, completely hidden to the user. These files can be cleaned manually from a drive with a tool like Onyx, but that would need to be done every single time any ISO file was modified (moved, copied, renamed) on any Mac.
Ideally the solution to this is for Ventoy to ignore and hide any dot files it encounters, regardless of whether or not they end in “.iso”. Just like “ls” does unless you do “ls -a”.