GEMini Atari/GEMini_Atari_CD-ROM_Walnut_Creek_December_1993.iso/files/diskutil/dlii024/dlii_024.doc

Text File | 1988-09-14 | 12KB | 266 lines

            VERY PRELIMINARY MANUAL FOR BETA-TEST VERSIONS OF DL II
                   (c) 1987 Simon Poole ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

                               DL II User's Guide

     I. Introduction

     DL II is a checkdisk/unerase/diskedit program with following
     functions:
        -Disk usage display
        -Check of FAT integrity
        -Check for lost and crosslinked clusters
        -Some disk fix functions
        -Automatic and manual unerase
        -File attribute change
        -Disk editing, file or sector oriented
        -Editing of harddisk bootsector

     DL II is completely GEM based and will run on any Atari-ST model in
     medium or high resolution.

     I (Simon Poole) make no warranty of any kind in respect to this manual
     and the software described in this manual. The user assumes all risk
     as to the quality and performance of this product. In no event will I
     be liable for direct, indirect, incidental or consequential damages
     resulting from any defect in the performance and use of this product.

                                GETTING STARTED

     II.1 Running DL II

     Copy the files DLII.PRG and DLII.RSC to a undamaged disk or harddisk
     partition. DL II trys to uses the a filename mask of the form
     DLII*.RSC to search for the resource file, so it will load the first
     file fitting this specification in the search path.

     To run DL II double click on DLII.PRG, if you don't want an automatic
     diskcheck performed after most operations, deselect Autocheck in the
     Options menu (the default value is not to perform a diskcheck).

     II.2 Terminology

     A sector is the smallest entity on a disk from the view of the BIOS
     (Basic Input Output System). On the ST a sector is normally 512 bytes
     large. Sectors are numbered from zero (normally the so-called
     bootsector) to the maximum amount of sectors on the device minus one.

     A cluster is the smallest unit of diskspace allocated for files on the
     disk by GEMDOS. On the ST a cluster is normally two sectors.

     The FAT (File Allocation Table) keeps track of which clusters are
     allocated to which file.

     II.3 Implementation Restrictions

     The current version of DL II will only handle a sector size of 512
     bytes and a maximum cluster size of two sectors. Possibly future
     versions will support a cluster size of 4 (MS-DOS harddisks).

     II.4 Command Overview

     The functions of DL II can be divided into three groups:  commands
     which access the disk via the information in the device's bootsector;
     commands which do not need a correct bootsector; and commands that
     are not disk related. Do not try to use any of the functions which
     use the bootsector information on a disk with a corrupted bootsector!

     Use bootsector:
        Menu Disk:
        View/Edit...          View and edit the disk on a sector by
                              sector basis (see II.5 View/Edit dialog box).
     Menu File:
        Files...              Select files for a following operation
                              (see II.6  Files dialog box).
        Check...              Perform a diskcheck on the current device.

        These commands will also be preceded by a diskcheck, if Auto-
        check is enabled in the Options menu.

     Don't use bootsector:
        Menu Disk:
        Change Disk...        Change the current device.
        View/Edit Bootsector  View/Edit the bootsector of the current
                              device.

        If the bootsector of the current device has been damaged, it
        may be possible to fix it with the edit function.

     Non-disk commands:
        Menu File:
        Chain to ReOrg...     Terminate DL II and start ReOrg.PRG,
                              please consult appendix A.
        Quit                  Terminate DL II.

     II.5 The View/Edit dialog box

     This dialog box is used by:
        Disk: View/Edit, View/Edit Bootsector
        Files: View/Edit, Unerase
     Depending on the actual function you are using, some or all of the
     buttons will be disabled. The number in the top right hand corner
     tells you which logical sector/cluster you are working on. The number
     is always relative to sector zero of the current disk or the first
     cluster of the file.

     To leave the View/Edit dialog press <Return> or select Exit. A point
     to note is that in the ASCII display NUL and @ are mapped to space. If
     you want to enter these to characters use the hexadecimal part of the
     display.

     II.5.1 Horizontal slider

     The left and right arrows decrease/increase the current sector/cluster
     number by one. A single click in the grey part of the slider bar will
     decrease/increase the number by 10. The slider can also be dragged to
     any position.

     To position the slider at an absolute position, double click the bar
     and enter the sector/cluster number in the dialog box. All elements in
     the horizontal slider autorepeat if the mouse-button is pressed for a
     longer time.

     II.5.2  Vertical slider

     The vertical slider, bar and arrows work exactlly the same as in GEM
     windows, with the execption that all elements autorepeat if the
     mouse-button is pressed for a longer time.

     II.5.3 Search function

     A single click on the search button will call up a dialog box, where
     you can enter the string you want to search for in normal ASCII form
     (case sensitive!) or as a hexadecimal number. If a match is found, the
     first character of the string is inverted for ten seconds, a keypress
     or a mouse click returns you immediately. To continue from the current
     postion double click the search button. If no match is found the last
     partial match is displayed.

     II.5.4 Copy function

     To copy a sector/cluster to a different position in the disk/file
     select Copy and enter the new position in the dialog box.

     II.5.5 Add function

     The Add button is only used by the file Unerase function. Please
     consult the chapter on that.

     II.5.6 Editing

     To edit a sector/cluster: single click in the ASCII or hexadecimal
     part of the dialog box. A cursor will appear which can be moved with
     the cursor keys. Text or numbers entered will effect both parts of the
     display immediatly. Press <Return> to exit from edit mode. If you
     decide not to write to disk the contents of the internal buffer will
     NOT be updated, so you can move to a different part of the
     cluster/sector and carry on with editing. To reread the sector/cluster
     from disk, double click in the ASCII or hexadecimal part of the
     display.

     II.6 The File menu

     II.6.1 The Files dialog box

     This dialog form works much the same as the standard GEM fileselector.
     Differences:  all parts of the vertical slider auto-repeat, only the
     actual filename is selectable. To return from a subdirectory (folder)
     to its parent directory, select the '..' entry.

     II.6.2 Chain to ReOrg

     If you are using DL II from the GEM-Desktop, this command will
     immediately terminate DL II and start ReOrg.PRG (if ReOrg.PRG is in
     the current desktop search path).

     II.6.3 Quit

     Terminate DL II immediately.

     II.7 The Disk menu

     II.7.1 Check

     Selecting the Check command will start a check of all the files and
     directories on the current drive, things that are checked:
        -lost clusters (clusters that are marked as used, but do not
         belong to a file or directory)
        -crosslinked clusters (clusters that are used by two different
         files)
        -bad directory entries (zero length files, first cluster out
         of range)
        -other catastropic errors in file allocation

     Once the check is finished a dialog form will show the results of the
     operation. If DL II finds something wrong with the disk structure, it
     will show that in this dialog. If DL II can fix the problem, the Fix
     button will be enabled. To get a printout of the results, select the
     Protocol button. You will notice that bad directory entries to not
     cause the Fix button to be enabled, please use the Protocol option to
     find out what is causing the trouble and delete the appropriate file
     if necessary.

     The format of the Protocol file list is:
        Filename Attribute Start-Cluster Filesize Error-Message

     The Fix command will truncate files to avoid crosslinked clusters and
     generate files of the form 99999999.FIX (where 99999999 is a unique
     number) in the root directory out of lost clusters. Since only unused
     (and not deleted) entries are used, there is a limit to the number of
     files that can be generated. If you have problems with this, you can
     change deleted entries into unused entries by changing the first
     letter of the filename from $E5 (σ) to $00, but be careful this also
     marks the end of used entries in the directory!

     IMPORTANT:  DON'T USE THE FIX FUNCTION WITHOUT MAKING AN IMAGE BACKUP
     OF THE DISK FIRST!

     II.8 The Options menu

     If Autocheck is enabled every time the current disk is changed or an
     operation is performed which may change the disk, a diskcheck
     operation is performed.

     Appendix A:  ReOrg, a disk reorganizer

     IMPORTANT:  REORG IS NOT A STANDALONE PROGRAM! YOU NEED AT LEAST
     ANIMAGE BACKUP PROGRAM AND A DISKCHECK PROGRAM BEFORE YOU CAN USE IT!

     IMPORTANT:  ALWAYS, ALWAYS MAKE AN IMAGE BACKUP OF YOUR DISK BEFORE
     RUNNING REORG ON IT!

     ReOrg improves disk performance on harddisk and floppys through better
     placement of subdirectories and their files on disk and through
     defragmentation of the files themselves. It will also remove deleted
     and zero length entries.

     As the actual reorganizing is NOT an incremental process, during the
     time from the start of the reorganization to the end of it your disk
     is in an unusable condition (at least from the viewpoint of the
     operating system). This means, that a power failure, computer
     malfunction, disk error or program failure during the reorganization
     will leave you with a corrupted disk!

     To run ReOrg, backup your disk, run the diskcheck program on it (DL II
     will work ok) and ONLY run ReOrg after all crosslinked and lost
     clusters have been disposed of! ReOrg has NO protection against
     incorrect disks and will probably run into an infinite loop if you do
     not take these precautions!

     After you have run ReOrg and reorganized your disk, the computer will
     reboot. This is normal and serves the purpose of reinitilizing the TOS
     internal directory tree.

     How ReOrg rebuilds your disk:
        'Every (sub)directory is immediately followed by all the files
        it owns, followed by all the subdirectories it is parent of.
        Using the last sentence recursively, the place of every file on
        the disk is determined now'
        (from the Reformat manual by Jos Wennmacker)

     This also implies that after you have reorganized your disk, the
     amount of clusters ReOrg reports it has to move after a bit of work on
     the disk will be quite large. I would recommend not using ReOrg again
     before the performance of your disk actually drops.