diff --git a/ChangeLog b/ChangeLog
index d4c3d6a0d..cda87fcdf 100644
--- a/ChangeLog
+++ b/ChangeLog
@@ -1,3 +1,7 @@
+2004-08-07  Jason Thomas  <jason@staff.pnc.com.au>
+	From Michael Hohnbaum <hohnbaum@us.ibm.com>:
+	* stage2/fsys_ext2fs.c (ext2fs_read): Handle sparse files.
+
 2004-07-24  Yoshinori K. Okuji  <okuji@enbug.org>
 
 	* stage2/stage2.c (cmain): Terminate DEFAULT_FILE with NUL
diff --git a/stage2/fsys_ext2fs.c b/stage2/fsys_ext2fs.c
index ef3770096..560048f4c 100644
--- a/stage2/fsys_ext2fs.c
+++ b/stage2/fsys_ext2fs.c
@@ -432,12 +432,16 @@ ext2fs_read (char *buf, int len)
       if (size > len)
 	size = len;
 
-      disk_read_func = disk_read_hook;
+      if (map == 0) {
+        memset ((char *) buf, 0, size);
+      } else {
+        disk_read_func = disk_read_hook;
 
-      devread (map * (EXT2_BLOCK_SIZE (SUPERBLOCK) / DEV_BSIZE),
-	       offset, size, buf);
+        devread (map * (EXT2_BLOCK_SIZE (SUPERBLOCK) / DEV_BSIZE),
+	         offset, size, buf);
 
-      disk_read_func = NULL;
+        disk_read_func = NULL;
+      }
 
       buf += size;
       len -= size;