My HFS-Volume seems to be recognized if I give the Volume a name with an odd no. of characters say "NEW" but fails to be recognized if the name is say "NAND_HFS". Does anybody know of a possible reason why this is happening ?

I think this had something to do with the key length field. In my case - if the volume name is even hence implying that the associated key does not end on an even byte boundary (where applicable), i byte is added for padding but the key-length and name length fields are maintained as before. In those keys which have to be of size=maximum key length the padding with zeroes is done in any case.