No Fragments Archive 10: Diskmags/nf_archive_10.iso/MAGS/ST_USER/1990/USERJN90.MSA/DLII_DLII.ASC

Text File | 1990-03-20 | 13KB | 361 lines

VERY VERY 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 orientated
          -Editing of harddisk bootsector

DL II will run on any Atari-ST model in medium or high resolution
mode, it is completly GEM based.

I  (Simon Poole) make no warranty of any kind in respect to  this
manual  and  the  software described in  this  manual.  The  user
assumes  any  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.

GEM, AES, GEMDOS are trademarks of Digital Research Inc.
Atari, ST, TOS  are trademarks of Atari Co.
MS-DOS is a trademark of Microsoft Inc.

                       II. 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 specifcation in the search path.  Try
this with the german resource file DLIIGER.RSC.

To run DL II double click or open DLII.PRG,  if you don't want  a
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 diskspace is  allocated  in  for
files on the disk by GEMDOS.  On the ST a cluster is normally two
sectors large.

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

For  more  information  on TOS and  GEMDOS  disk  structure  read
chapter III.

II.3 Implementation Restrictions

The  current version of DL II will only handle a sector  size  of
512  bytes  and a maximum clustersize of  two  sectors,  possibly
future   versions  will  support  a  clustersize  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  bootsector  of
the device,  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 base (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
          Autocheck 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 the
                                   appendix A.

          Quit                     Terminate DL II.

II.5 The View/Edit dialog box

II.5.0 Overview

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 relativ 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 immediatly.
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 on 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  hexa-
decimal 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.6.0 Overview

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
immediatley terminate DL II and start ReOrg.PRG (if ReOrg.PRG  is
in the current desktop search path).

II.6.3 Quit

Terminate DL II immediatley.

II.7 The File operation dialog

II.7.0 Overview

II.7.1 Erase

II.7.2 Unerase

[Recover would be a better expression]

II.7.3 Edit entry

II.7.4 Show fragmentation

II.7.5 View/Edit

II.7.6 Next and Previous buttons


II.8 The Disk menu

II.8.0 Overview

II.8.1 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
trouble and delete the approbiate 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 an
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.8.2 View/Edit

II.8.3 View/Edit Bootsector

II.8.4 Change Current Disk


II.9 The Options menu

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



                     III. TOS Disk Structure

[This part will be interesting, for now have a look at:
 Inside the IBM-PC by Peter Norton]

               IV. Everything that DL II can do..

[Just a list of everything]


              Appendix A: ReOrg, a disk reorganizer

IMPORTANT: REORG IS NOT A STANDALONE PROGRAM! YOU NEED AT LEAST A
IMAGE  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 there 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 a 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  a  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.

A verbal description of how ReOrg rebulids your disk is:

     '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  implys  that after you have  reorganised  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.

                   Appendix B: Error messages