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YES! I find The Master Key Utilities useful and I want to register my copy. I understand that by registering, I will recieve a program disk containing a legitimate copy of The Master Key Utilities, complete documentation ready for printing, and published announcements of future released of The Master Key Utilities. I also understand that as a registered user of The Master Key Utilities, I will ALWAYS be able to upgrade to the most recent version of The Master Key Utilities FREE OF CHARGE! All that I need to do to recieve the most recent version is send the original master disk in a self addressed, postage paid diskette mailer to R. P. Gage, and I will be returned the latest of The Master Key Utilities! ----------------------------------------------------------------- The registration fee for The Master Key Utilities is $20.00. Send me __ copy/copies at $20.00 each. Total ____________ Name:___________________________________ Address:________________________________ City:____________________ State:________ Zip Code:________________ Telephone:_______________ Send cash or check to... R. P. Gage 1125 6th St. N. #43 Columbus, MS 39701 ----------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------- The Master Key Utilities User's Guide To Operation Version 1.7b --------------------------- R. P. Gage 1125 6th St. N. #43 Columbus, MS 39701 March 1, 1987 Copyright (c) 1987 by R. P. Gage, all rights reserved. The Master Key Utilities -- Version 1.7b Copyright (c) 1987 by R. P. Gage, all rights reserved. Disclaimer of Warranties and Limitation of Liabilities The Master Key Utilities consist of the programs named Master Key, Fill Disk, Un Format, and Zero File. The Master Key Utilities and this documentation are distri- buted without any express or implied warranties. No warranty of fitness for a particular purpose is offered. You, the user, are advised to experiment and become familiar with all of The Master Key Utilities programs before relying on them. You assume all risk for the use and operation of these programs. You alone shall be responsible for any loss of profits, loss of savings, or other incidental or consequential damages arising out of the correct or incorrect use of these programs, even if I have been advised of the possibility of any damages. I do not warrant that this documentation is accurate, or that any of The Master Key Utilities programs (Master Key, Fill Disk, Un Format, or Zero File) operates as I have claimed or as I have designed it to operate. By using any of The Master Key Utilities programs you agree to the above limitations. DESQview is a trademark of Quarterdeck Office Systems. IBM, TopView, and PC-DOS are trademarks of International Business Machines Corporation. MS-DOS and Microsoft Windows are trademarks of Microsoft Corporation. TURBO Pascal is a trademark of Borland International, Inc. The Master Key Utilities -- Version 1.7b Copyright (c) 1987 by R. P. Gage, all rights reserved. Shareware Registration Agreement The Master Key Utilities are supported by you, the users that find the programs productive! If you have benefited in some way from The Master Key Utilities or make regular use of any of the programs, please register your copy for $20.00. Registered users will be given a program disk containing a legitimate copy of The Master Key Utilities, documentation ready for printing, and published announcements of future releases of The Master Key Utilities. The registration fee is not an optional matter if The Master Key Utilities are used in a commercial environment, and must be paid for each copy of any of The Master Key Utilities maintained. Unmodified copies of the The Master Key Utilities programs and documentation files may be made for your own use, to give away without charge to others, or to distribute within a user group. User groups may distribute The Master Key Utilities provided they notify me, in writing, of their intent to do so. If a fee must be charged to copy and distribute The Master Key Utilities, this fee may not exceed $7.50. Organizations other than user groups may not charge any fee to distribute The Master Key Utilities. The Master Key Utilities may not be distributed commercially or with any commercial product without prior consent. Table Of Contents Page System Requirements .................................... 1 What are The Master Key Utilities, and What Can They Do? 2 Conventions Used ....................................... 4 Master Key ............................................. 6 Starting Master Key ............................... 6 Selecting a File .................................. 8 ALTER Modify the attributes of files .......... 10 CHANGE Change the current working drive ........ 11 DISK View and/or edit the current drive ...... 12 ERASE Erase files on the current drive ........ 16 FILE View and/or edit a file on the drive .... 17 INFO Show information on the current drive ... 18 LOCATE Look for matching files on the drive .... 19 MAP Show a graphical map of disk usage ...... 20 RENAME Rename files on the current drive ....... 21 UNERASE Unerase files on the current drive ...... 23 QUIT End Master Key and return to DOS ........ 25 Error Messages .................................... 26 WARNING ! ......................................... 31 Fill Disk .............................................. 32 Un Format .............................................. 33 Zero File .............................................. 37 Program Notes .......................................... 38 System Requirements To run, The Master Key Utilities require an IBM PC/XT/AT or true compatible computer running under MS-DOS version 2.0 or later with at least 128K of free memory, a monitor using a Mono- chrome or Color/Graphics display card, and, at a minimum, one floppy disk drive. The specific free memory requirements for each program are: Master Key .......................................... 128k + Un Format ........................................... 128k Fill Disk ........................................... 64k Zero File ........................................... 64k The Master Key program makes use of more memory if it has a need for more. Additional memory is usually required only when you are using Master Key with a hard disk that contains many files and sub-directories. Usually, it runs without any problems in 128k. Each of The Master Key Utilities can work with and use any MS-DOS disk your system has. This includes 160k, 180k, 320k, 360k, and 1.2MB floppy drives; hard disks drives; RAM disks; and physical or virtual disk drives accessed by a device driver. Currently, The Master Key Utilities have successfully run under the TopView, Microsoft Windows, and DESQview operating environments. In all cases, The Master Key Utility programs run in a separate window allowing simultaneous use with other programs. The Master Key Utilities, version 1.7b Page 1 What are the Master Key Utilities, and What Can They Do? The Master Key Utilities are a collection of four programs designed, simply put, to open the doors into your MS-DOS disks. They give you the flexibility and power to do many things with your disks that you previously were unable to do. These programs are: Master Key, Fill Disk, Un Format, and Zero File. Master Key Master Key is a disk editor, a file editor, a file manipu- lator, and much more. It gives you the ability to work with individual files or the disk as a whole and lets you perform operations that DOS usually isn't able to provide. Generally, it lets you manipulate everything on your disks easily, powerfully, and with very few restrictions. The current version of Master Key, version 1.7b, is able to provide the following functions: Access ANY MS-DOS disk available: any sized floppy disk, any sized hard disk (up to 32MB), any sized RAM disk, and any other physical or virtual disk accessed through a device driver; all with any allowable sector size (128, 256, or 512 bytes). Access ANY file or sub-directory in ANY sub-directory on these disks. The status of a file or sub-directory is irrelevant. Master Key can access all Hidden, System, and Read-Only files with equal ease. Edit a disk, on a sector basis, allowing full access in a sequential or random manner to any available sector on the disk. The sector number being edited is displayed at all times. Edit any file or sub-directory on the disk, on a sector basis, allowing full access in a sequential or random manner to any sector in the file or sub-directory. The relative sector number within the file or sub-directory is displayed at all times. Search for and go immediately to any text up to 32 characters long while editing a disk or file. Display a graphical map of total disk usage and free space, as well as a map of the location of any file on the disk. Change any of the attributes for any file or sub- directory on a disk. This includes R/O, Hidden, System and Archive status as well as the date and time of creation. The Master Key Utilities, version 1.7b Page 2 Find any file or sub-directory on a disk matching an ambiguous or unambiguous file specification. (ie. *.BAT or WS.COM). Rename any file or sub-directory on a disk. Erase any file on a disk. Unerase any file or sub-directory on a disk that is able to be unerased. Fill Disk Fill Disk is designed to write any message, up to 128 chara- cters in length, on all of the free sectors on a disk. It works on all types of disks equally well, but was designed specifically for use with hard disks. Fill Disk can be used to label a hard disk uniquely as yours, providing a deterrent to theft. Un Format Un Format is another method of safeguarding hard disks. If used regularly, as mentioned later in the documentation, it protects hard disk users from accidental hard disk formats. After a surprising format of your hard disk, Un Format, when used properly, quickly and easily restores the hard disk to the state it was in before it was formatted. Zero File Zero File is a utility that completely wipes out any trace of a file's data from a disk. If you need to know that no confidential data can be left on your disks, use Zero File to erase the necessary files. When a file is zeroed with Zero File, there will be no way to Unerase it or recover any part of its data. The Master Key Utilities, version 1.7b Page 3 Conventions Used To make the use of The Master Key Utilities and this docu- mentation a little easier, here are descriptions of the phrases and symbols used frequently. Program Conventions Each program, to run properly, has several options that can be issued from the command line. Some options are required, some are not. Options enclosed by square brackets, "[" and "]", are not required in all instances, while those not enclosed by any- thing are required. The options specific to each program are preceded by a backslash, "/". Examples of this are "/RESTORE" and "/COLOR". The documentation for each program will describe what these different options mean. Words enclosed by angled brackets, "<" and ">", are words describing an option. These options may or may not be required depending on if they are also enclosed by square brackets. Currently, there are only two of these options to worry about. They are: message any text, not surrounded in quotes filename any valid filename (ex: New.txt, A:One.txt) Also, while a program is running, you may see other text enclosed in angle brackets. This is used to describe a key to press. An example of this exists in the main menu of Master Key where, in part, the text states, "... then pressing <ENTER>." This wording, in this example, means to press the Enter key and not the letters <, E, N, T, E, R, and >. The F10 and End keys are also referred to in this way (ie., as <F10> and <END>). Documentation Conventions The conventions used in this document refer mainly to the description of function keys. Each function key, wherever possible, is described by the word or lettering that appears on the key. Where this is not possible, the key is described by its function and is surrounded in angle brackets. The names I use for these keys and their descriptions are: End the End key (key 1) on the numeric keyboard Enter the enter or return key Esc the escape key (wherever it is located) F1 function key one F2 function key two The Master Key Utilities, version 1.7b Page 4 F3 function key three F4 function key four F5 function key five F6 function key six F7 function key seven F8 function key eight F9 function key nine F10 function key ten Home the Home key (key 7) on the numeric keyboard Ins the Ins key (key 0) on the numeric keyboard PgDn the PgDn key (key 3) on the numeric keyboard PgUp the PgUp key (key 9) on the numeric keyboard Tab the tab key <DOWN> the down arrow key on the numeric keyboard <LEFT> the left arrow key on the numeric keyboard <RIGHT> the right arrow key on the numeric keyboard <UP> the up arrow key on the numeric keyboard The Master Key Utilities, version 1.7b Page 5 Master Key -- Disk Management Utility Starting Master Key Master Key is started by typing "MK" from the MS-DOS prompt. Doing so loads and runs Master Key without problem, but the com- plete invocation for Master Key from the prompt is: MK [/COLOR] [/MONO] [/SLOW] [/ALL] [d:] Each of the options, briefly described below, exist to force Master Key to ignore what it found out about your computer and accept what you really want. The case and order of the options is not important. /COLOR Display Color. All text displayed is shown in a variety of colors, even if Master Key has found a monochrome display adapter installed. /MONO Display Monochrome. All text displayed is shown in two "colors", even if Master Key has found a color/graphics display adapter installed. Use this option when using a graphics adapter with a monochrome monitor. Note: Pressing Tab at any time while the main menu is displayed switches the display between the color (/COLOR) and monochrome (/MONO) modes. /SLOW Display Slow. Forces Master Key to use DOS function calls to display text on the screen. This display method is not the default setting because it's significantly slower than the fast display method. Normally, Master Key uses direct memory writes to display text on the screen. This is a lot faster than using DOS function calls. If Master Key is used in a windowing operating environment, /SLOW may be necessary for Master Key to run in a window alongside other programs. /ALL Show all ASCII characters, standard and extended. Makes Master Key, when editing a disk or file, display both standard and extended ASCII characters. Normally, Master Key just displays standard ASCII characters, while dis- playing extended characters as a period ("."). See the DISK section for details. d: Sets the current working drive to d:. The drive letter must be a valid drive letter for your system. If d: is not a valid drive letter, Master Key sets the currently logged drive to the current working drive. Once started, the main menu is shown. The information in the main menu includes the name of the program (Master Key) and The Master Key Utilities, version 1.7b Page 6 Master Key -- Disk Management Utility version number (1.7b), my copyright, MS-DOS version number, amount of memory available to DOS, number of drives, logical drive letters, current working drive, my name and address, and finally a list of the functions available. Currently, there are eleven functions available from the main menu. They are: ALTER .... Modify the attributes of files. CHANGE ... Change the current working drive. DISK ..... View and/or edit the current drive. ERASE .... Erase files on the current drive. FILE ..... View and/or edit a file on the drive. INFO ..... Show information on the current drive. LOCATE ... Look for matching files on the drive. MAP ...... Show a graphical map of disk usage. RENAME ... Rename files on the current drive. UNERASE .. Unerase files on the current drive. QUIT ..... End Master Key and return to DOS. These functions are selected by moving the highlighted bar with <UP> and <DOWN> and pressing Enter when the bar highlights the function you want to execute. An alternative, easier method of selecting a function is to type the first letter of the function name (A, C, D, E, F, I, L, M, R, U, or Q) and then press Enter. The Master Key Utilities, version 1.7b Page 7 Master Key -- Disk Management Utility Selecting a File Since a file must be selected for six of the ten functions, choosing what file to work with is vital for using Master Key well. Luckily, choosing a file is very easy and almost doesn't need any description. Before beginning, however, what the word "file" means needs a little clarification to avoid confusion. A file, as defined and viewed by Master Key and DOS, is a name and all data associated with that name, just as you would expect and have been expecting it to be all along. However, technically a sub-directory is also a viewed as a file to DOS because of the way in which it is accessed and used. Because of this little technicality, and to give you more power easier, Master Key also views a sub-directory as a file. Files and sub-directories are treated as equals in functions that use files. All file functions can be used to manipulate sub-directories within Master Key with equal ease, with a few exceptions, discussed later. Whenever the word "file" appears within this document, it generally also can refer to a sub-directory. The opposite is not true however. The word "sub-directory" does not likewise refer to a file. In any case, once you have selected a function that requires a file eventually to be selected, (ALTER, ERASE, FILE, MAP, RENAME, or UNERASE) Master Key checks to see if the current working drive's directory has been read into memory yet. If the directory hasn't been read into memory, Master Key does so, displaying the following message in the center of the screen: Reading Directory Information... At this point, Master Key has the potential to be a memory hog. When a file has to be accessed for any of these functions, Master Key first reads the drive's ENTIRE directory, keeping ALL files and ALL sub-directory names and information in memory. Should Master Key run out of memory while reading the drive's directory, it will abort. Plain and simple. Normally, this won't be a problem to most people, but refer to the error message section for help if you run out of free memory space. Reading a drive's directory may take a little time, all depending on how many files and sub-directories are on the drive and how quickly the drive operates. In any case, be patient and after a moment, Master Key will be done. When the entire directory is in memory, use the <UP>, The Master Key Utilities, version 1.7b Page 8 Master Key -- Disk Management Utility <DOWN>, PgUp, PgDn, Home, and End keys to move the highlighted cursor to select the sub-directory you want to use to get files from. <UP> and <DOWN> move the highlighted bar to the previous and next sub-directory. PgUp and PgDn move the bar up and down to the previous and next screen of sub-directories. Home and End move the bar to the first and last sub-directory. Press Enter to accept the highlighted sub-directory or press F10 to abort and go back to the main menu. If you don't have any sub-directories, selecting a sub-directory will be skipped. In a similar manner, using <UP>, <DOWN>, PgUp, PgDn, Home, and End, highlight and select the file to work with. The Master Key Utilities, version 1.7b Page 9 Master Key -- Disk Management Utility ALTER Modify the attributes of files ALTER is used to change the attributes, date, and time for any file on the current working drive. You can make a file hidden, read-only, or a system file with equal ease, and also change its date and time of creation with little effort. After within the ALTER function, select the initial file to work with. Once a file has been selected, you have the chance to change its attributes. To change one of the attributes (Read Only, Hidden, System, or Archive), move the highlighted bar with <UP> and <DOWN> and press Enter to toggle the highlighted attribute on or off. When an attribute is on, it is set or in an active state. Changing the time or date is a little different, but not enough to make it difficult. Once the highlighted bar is over the date or time field, press any key to tell Master Key you want to change the contents of that field. Upon pressing any key when the date or time field is high- lighted, you should notice the presence of a cursor within the highlighted bar. You can now type in the new date or time (only valid numbers are accepted), and move the cursor to a different place using <LEFT> and <RIGHT>. Pressing <UP>, <DOWN>, or Enter ends your changes to the date or time. When you are not actually editing the date or time fields, pressing <LEFT> or <RIGHT> changes the file you are working with to the previous or next file in the directory, respectively. If the file is changed in this manner (using <LEFT> or <RIGHT>), any changes you made to the previous file are NOT automatically saved. To save any changes made to the file's attributes, date, or time, press End. An easy way to tell if you have saved a file's attributes is to compare the "Present Attributes" column with the "New Attributes" column. After pressing End, they are identical. When finished changing attributes, pressing F10 lets you leave the ALTER function. After doing this, you are presented the ever familiar main menu and can continue from there as usual. The Master Key Utilities, version 1.7b Page 10 Master Key -- Disk Management Utility CHANGE Change the current working drive CHANGE has two major functions. The first and most obvious is that it lets you switch the current working drive to another available drive. The second less obvious function is that it also clears all file and directory information Master Key has stored, making it start over from scratch the next time a file needs to be accessed. Whenever you need to work with a disk other than the current working drive, select CHANGE and switch the current working drive. Whenever you switch floppy disks in a floppy disk drive, tell Master Key about the switch by changing the current working drive back to the floppy disk drive. If you forget to CHANGE the current working drive after switching floppy disks, Master Key will think the old floppy disk is still present when it isn't, and won't be able to function properly in any of the file functions. Pressing Enter with the CHANGE function selected opens a window showing something similar to: Enter a letter from A to E to change the current drive. Press <F10> to abort To change the current working drive, do as it says and type a letter in the range shown. In this example, you could type any of the letters A, B, C, D, or E. Anything else is not accepted. If you selected CHANGE by mistake, you can abort the func- tion by pressing F10. Doing so keeps Master Key from clearing all stored information on the current drive. The Master Key Utilities, version 1.7b Page 11 Master Key -- Disk Management Utility DISK View and/or edit the current drive If you have a need or a want to see and change what is actually stored on your disks, at a byte level, the DISK function provides that capability. When DISK is highlighted and Enter is pressed, Master Key goes to the first sector on the disk in the current working drive and displays it in both hexadecimal and ASCII coded formats. If you select DISK after previously editing the disk, (ie, selecting DISK a second time on the same disk) Master Key returns you to the previous sector you were editing, instead of the first sector on the disk. Once you begin editing the disk, a variety of function keys, arrow keys, movement keys, and other keys become effective. These keys and their functions are all described below. F1 Help. Function key one displays, whenever editing the disk, a screen summarizing the functions of specific keys described here. Getting help will not cause any changes previously made to the sector in memory to be lost, so you can ask for help at any time freely. F2 Toggle Hex/ASCII. Function key two moves the blinking cursor from the hex/ASCII side of the display, to the ASCII/hex side of the display. The cursor will stay at the same relative position in the sector that it was at previously, it will just go over to the opposite side for different editing. F3 Go to a sector. Function key three gives you the ability to go randomly to any allowable sector on the disk. After pressing F3, a window opens showing the valid range of sector numbers. Enter a number in the range shown, or press F10 to abort that function and remain at the sector you are currently at, without losing any changes previously made. F4 Go to previous sector. Function key four moves the current sector back to the previous sector displayed. Master Key continuously keeps track of the last five sectors that were displayed. After moving to another sector, pres- sing F4 repeatedly will bring back to one of those five sectors. Press F4 after going directly to a sector with F3, and you will be back at the previous sector quickly. F5 Search for data. Function key five lets you search for text anywhere on the disk. A window opens on the screen after F5 is pressed. Enter the text that you want to search for and press Enter and Master Key will search for it. Press F10 twice to abort searching for the data. Any chara- cter can be searched for. Master Key searches for both upper and lower case text at the same time, so if you want to The Master Key Utilities, version 1.7b Page 12 Master Key -- Disk Management Utility search for "Hello World", Master Key would find it even if you asked it to search for "hELLo WORld". All searching starts from the current cursor position within the sector and goes to the end of the disk or until the text is found. F6 Continue search. Function key six continues the text search started with F5. Pressing F6 makes Master Key search for the next occurrence of the text that was entered pre- viously. The searching starts from the current cursor posi- tion and goes to the end of the disk, just like it did with F5. F7 Go to start of disk. Function key seven changes the current sector being edited to the first sector of the disk. F8 Go to end of disk. Function key eight changes the current sector being edited to the last available sector on the disk. F9 Show disk info. Function key nine displays a screen showing assorted technical information on the current drive. This includes sector and cluster sizes, a few locations of key areas on the drive, and file information if available. Getting information will not cause any changes previously made to the sector in memory to be lost, so you can ask for disk information to be displayed at any time. F10 Function key ten stops editing, bringing you back to the main menu. <UP> Move up. The up arrow, moves the cursor up one line within the sector. If you are at the first line, the cursor wraps around to the last line in the sector. <DOWN> Move down. The down arrow, moves the cursor down one line within the sector. When the cursor is at the last line, <DOWN> wraps the cursor around to the first line. <RIGHT> Move right. The right arrow key, moves the cursor to the right. When you are at the last character (or byte) in a line, <RIGHT> moves the cursor to the the first character (or byte) in the next line. <LEFT> Move left. The left arrow, will moves the cursor to the left. When the cursor is at the first character and <LEFT> is pressed, the cursor wraps around to the last character in the line above the current line. PgUp Go forwards. The PgUp key makes Master Key advance the current sector to the next sector available on the disk, making it the current sector being edited. If you are already at the last sector, PgUp wraps around to the first sector on the disk. PgDn Go backwards. The PgDn key makes Master Key go The Master Key Utilities, version 1.7b Page 13 Master Key -- Disk Management Utility backwards one sector, making the previous sector on the disk the current sector being edited. When the current sector is the first sector, PgDn wraps around to the last sector on the disk. Home Reread sector. The Home key forces Master Key to reread the current sector into the sector in memory. There are two reasons why you might want to do this. The first is to try to reread a sector when an error happened on the first try. The other reason is to get a fresh copy of the sector into memory to edit, when you have made too many unwanted changes to the sector in memory. When Home is pressed, Master Key clears whatever changes you made and displays a new working copy of the current sector. End Write sector. The End key saves the changes you made to the sector in memory. If you move to another sector and forget to write it first, all changes made to the previous sector will not automatically be lost however. Master Key will ask you about saving the changes before it discards them. If you don't save the sector displayed on the screen, it will not be changed on the disk. Ins Toggle ASCII display. The Ins key switches between two different ASCII display modes. The default mode displays only standard ASCII characters. The other mode, toggled with Ins, displays all ASCII characters, both standard and extended. Any ASCII character can be entered in the ASCII part of the display at all times, but when only standard ASCII characters are being displayed any other character besides standard ASCII characters are displayed as a period ("."). At all times while editing, the actual sector number being edited is displayed at the bottom of the screen. The first sector number for a disk is always 1, while the last sector number depends on the format and capacity of the disk you are working with. Making a change to any sector is relatively easy. Locate or go to the sector you want to edit. Move the cursor to the position to change then type in the changes. Changes are discri- minated from what was previously in the sector by being high- lighted. Any ASCII character, all 256 of them, can be entered while the cursor is in the ASCII part of the display, but only valid hexadecimal characters (0 through 9, A through F) can be entered while the cursor is on the hex side of the display. This causes an interesting problem if you are used to making corrections with the backspace key. That method of correcting errors (the back- space key) doesn't work with Master Key, it is just accepted as another character and processed as a valid character or invalid character depending if the cursor is on the ASCII or hex side of The Master Key Utilities, version 1.7b Page 14 Master Key -- Disk Management Utility the display. To make a correction, you have to move the cursor with <LEFT> and type in the correction. The Master Key Utilities, version 1.7b Page 15 Master Key -- Disk Management Utility ERASE Erase files on the current drive The ERASE function obviously is used to erase any file on the current working drive. Master Key doesn't use the DOS erase function to erase files, so any file can be erased, even if it is supposed to be read only or hidden. The particular status of any file doesn't make any difference. Master Key currently won't allow sub-directories to be erased. After selecting ERASE, choose the sub-directory to get files from then the initial file to erase. Press F10 if you want to abort and go back to the main menu. When a file is selected, the screen clears and you will see something similar to what is shown below. The file, "OLD-FILE.NAM" will be deleted. Press 'Y' to delete the file. Press 'S' to skip deleting this file. Press <F10> to abort and exit. If you now press 'Y', the file OLD-FILE.NAM will be erased from the disk. Pressing 'S' (or 'N') will not erase the file. Upon pressing 'Y' or 'S', Master Key completes its work and then returns you to the file selection screen for the chance to select another file to erase. It repeats doing this until there are no files left in the directory or you eventually press F10. Pressing F10, as always, puts you back at the main menu without erasing anything. The Master Key Utilities, version 1.7b Page 16 Master Key -- Disk Management Utility FILE View and/or edit a file on the drive The FILE function is almost identical in operation to the DISK function. The main difference is that FILE gives you the ability to see and edit only what is in a file and not the entire disk. Press Enter when FILE is highlighted, select the directory to get files from and then get the initial file to edit. Press F10 to return to the main menu. After a file has been selected, you will are shown the first sector in the file, ready to edit it. All function keys, arrow keys, movement keys, and other keys act the same way as they did in the DISK functions, with a few minor differences in the way they operate, described briefly below. Except for what is des- cribed below, you should read and follow the key descriptions found in the section on DISK. F3 Go to a sector. Function key three still lets you go randomly to any sector, but goes to relative sectors within the file. You cannot edit any sector outside of the current file. F7 Go to start of file. Function key seven changes the current sector being edited to the first sector in the file. F8 Go to end of file. Function key eight changes the current sector being edited to the last sector in the file. PgUp Go forwards. The PgUp key advances the relative sector to the next sector in the file. It won't wrap around to the first sector if you are at the last sector in the file, but will remain at the last sector. PgDn Go backwards. The PgDn key goes backwards to the previous sector in the file being edited. If you are already at the first sector in the file, pressing PgDn leaves you at the first sector. At all times while editing, the relative sector number being edited will be displayed, not the actual sector number on the disk. The first relative sector number for a file is always 1, no matter where the start of the file physically is. Like DISK, pressing F10 returns you to the main menu. The Master Key Utilities, version 1.7b Page 17 Master Key -- Disk Management Utility INFO Show information on the current drive DOS hides most information that it has on available on the current working drive. Pressing Enter while INFO is highlighted displays much of this information along with some other informa- tion that is both useful and good to know. When INFO is selected, the left section of the screen will clear and the following information is displayed. The numbers differ depending on the format and size of the disk being used. This example shows a standard, newly formatted 360K floppy disk. Current drive A: 360 Kilobytes disk capacity (possible) 354 Kilobytes available (100.0%) free 512 bytes in each sector 720 total sectors on the disk 2 sectors in each cluster 354 total clusters on the disk 1 Reserved sector(s) 2 FAT copies; each using 2 sectors 112 files allowed in the root directory Volume [no label] 0 total directories on the disk 0 total files on the disk Start of Reserved sector(s): sector 0 Start of all FAT copies: sector 1 Start of the root directory: sector 5 Start of all data sectors: sector 12 You may be wondering why the disk capacity and disk available are different if this example is on a newly formatted disk. Notice that, at the bottom of the display, 11 sectors are taken up by the FAT and root directory while 1 sector is reserved. Multiplying 12 (11 + 1) by 512 bytes yields the 6k (1024 bytes equals one kilobyte) difference shown in the first two lines. The information on volume name, directories, and files is displayed only after the drive's directory has been read into memory. The Master Key Utilities, version 1.7b Page 18 Master Key -- Disk Management Utility LOCATE Look for matching files on the drive LOCATE finds and displays all files on the current drive matching any file specification. LOCATE helps users of hard and floppy disks looking for several copies of a file in different places on one disk, trying to find where a file is located, or just wanting to look at all files on a disk. When LOCATE is chosen, the screen clears, a few lines of help are displayed, and the following prompt appears: Filename: * .* Enter the file(s) you want to look for. The wildcards ? and * can be used as they would be with DOS, anywhere within the name to match any character and all characters from that point on, respectively. <LEFT> and <RIGHT> move the cursor to a specific location in the name to make changes. Tab moves the cursor from the filename to the extension part of the name and vice versa. Press Enter when the file to look for has been entered. After Enter is pressed, Master Key displays all files matching the filename entered (reading the directory if necessary), pausing at the end of every screenfull of files. When pausing, press F10 to stop the display or any other key to continue listing all matching files. Pressing F10 returns you to the main menu without locating any files. The Master Key Utilities, version 1.7b Page 19 Master Key -- Disk Management Utility MAP Show a graphical map of disk usage The MAP function graphically shows the free compared with occupied space on the current disk. It also displays, in the same graphic map, where a file is located on the current disk and gives a visual indication of the fragmentation of the file. After selecting MAP, Master Key goes to work creating the graphical map of total disk usage for the current disk. On floppy disk drives and other relatively small capacity disk drives, this happens very quickly. On large capacity hard disk drives and on slower computers, creating this map may take several seconds. Be patient and soon the map will appear. When the graphical map eventually is shown, you are shown the amount of free space in textual form as well as the visual free space displayed in the map. Additionally, you are shown how many clusters each symbol represents. Because of the space limitation of the graphical map on your screen, each symbol can represent from one cluster to twenty or more clusters. Usually for floppy disks and small RAM disks, each symbol represents one cluster. On hard disks and other large capacity disks, each symbol typically represents many more clusters. On my hard disk, one symbol represents 20.3 clusters. After the disk map is shown, press any key to continue on to the individual file mapping. Select a directory and initial file to map as described in the Selecting a File section. Once an initial file is selected, <LEFT> and <RIGHT> changes the file being mapped to the previous and next file in the current directory, respectively. Pressing Ins while mapping lets you select another directory to map files from to avoid the possibly lengthy process of re-mapping the entire disk. Press F10 to return to the main menu. The Master Key Utilities, version 1.7b Page 20 Master Key -- Disk Management Utility RENAME Rename files on the current drive The RENAME function can rename any file on the current working drive. Master Key goes around the DOS rename function to rename files, letting you change the name of any file, even if it has a hidden or system status. The status of a file isn't of importance to Master Key. The main difference between the RENAME function and the DOS rename command is that RENAME can only change the name of one file at a time and cannot be used with wildcards. Once RENAME is selected, choose the directory to get files from and then a file to rename. Press F10 if you decide at some point that you don't want to rename files and you'll be returned to the main menu. After choosing a file, the screen clears and you are asked to enter the new name for the file. If you were trying to rename "OLD-FILE.NAM," the screen would show, (in part): Filename: OLD-FILE.NAM Enter the new name for the file, typing over the old name. The new name must be typed in exactly as you want to see it appear in the directory. You may have to type over previous extra characters with spaces if necessary so that the new name appears exactly as you want it. If leading or embedded spaces are left in the filename or extension part of the name (as an example, "Letter 1.txt"), DOS will have a difficult time accessing the file. The file can still be used and accessed in a few instances from DOS (and always from Master Key), but a little trickery is involved to do so. (Leaving embedded spaces in the name is permitted in Master Key only because you might want to make a file harder to access. Embedding spaces in a name is definitely one way to make a file harder to access from DOS.) <LEFT> and <RIGHT> moves the cursor to any point in the old name to make changes. Tab moves the cursor from the name to the extension part of the name and vice versa. When you have changed the name to what you desire, press Enter and you will see: The file, "OLD-FILE.NAM" will be renamed to "NEW-FILE.NAM" Press 'Y' to rename the file. Press 'R' to re-enter the new file name. Press 'S' to skip renaming this file. Press <F10> to abort and exit. Pressing 'Y' at this point renames the old file name to the new name you typed in. If you pressed 'S' (or 'N'), the file won't be renamed and you will be allowed to select another file The Master Key Utilities, version 1.7b Page 21 Master Key -- Disk Management Utility to rename. 'R' will show you the "Filename:" prompt shown above, letting you change the name again and try again. Pressing F10, as usual, brings you back to the main menu, without renaming anything. The Master Key Utilities, version 1.7b Page 22 Master Key -- Disk Management Utility UNERASE Unerase files on the current drive Well, you've gone off and erased a file by mistake, and it's an important file. Before using Master Key, you would have to try to re-create the file if that was possible. Now, you have the ability to recover the file with a minimum of effort and continue on as normal by using the UNERASE function. After selecting UNERASE, choose the sub-directory to get erased files from then the initial file to unerase. Press F10 if you want to abort and go back to the main menu. When a file is selected, the screen clears and you will see something similar to what is shown below. Enter the first letter for "?LD-FILE.NAM" to begin unerasing it. When a file is erased, one of the parts of it that is altered is the first character in the filename. To unerase a file, you have to supply the first character in its name. Once the first letter in the file name is entered, the following messages displays: The file, "OLD-FILE.NAM" will be unerased. Press 'Y' to unerase the file. Press 'S' to skip unerasing this file. Press <F10> to abort and exit. If you now press 'Y', Master Key attempts to unerase the file OLD-FILE.NAM. Pressing 'S' (or 'N') will not unerase the file. After pressing 'Y' or 'S', Master Key completes its work and returns you to the file selection screen for the chance to select another file to unerase. It repeats doing this until there are no erased files left in the sub-directory or you even- tually press F10. Pressing F10 always puts you back at the main menu without unerasing anything. Successfully unerasing a file depends on a lot of factors and is in no way guaranteed to be always successful. Two of these factors, described below, can be a big help or big hindrance when Master Key tries to unerase a file. Time. Generally, unerasing a file immediately after erasing it will work without problems. The chances of successfully unerasing a file go down with the passage of more time since its erasure. If nothing has been written to the disk since the file was erased, there is a very good chance that it can The Master Key Utilities, version 1.7b Page 23 Master Key -- Disk Management Utility be unerased. However, if some time has passed and you have saved a few files to the disk, it is highly unlikely that an erased file can be fully recovered. Fragmentation. Chances for a successful unerasure are also increased if both the file and disk weren't in a fragmented state before the file was erased. A file is fragmented if its clusters aren't stored consecutively on the disk. Fragmentation usually only happens in large files that get updated often (like databases). I recommend that a preventative precaution be taken: unfragment your entire disk (especially hard disks!) on a regular basis with any of the many commercial or public domain programs that claim to unfragment disks. If Master Key is successful in unerasing a file, all still may not be well -- the data it has saved may not be what was originally in your file. Please check over your file (possibly by using the FILE function) to make sure that it contains the correct data. Be especially careful if the file you unerased is a .COM or .EXE file. Master Key, unlike several other programs that unerase files, can unerase sub-directories as well. It does have a limitation however. Because sub-directories do not have a size stored as part of its information, Master Key has no way of knowing how many clusters it occupied. Whenever a sub-directory is unerased, only its first cluster is unerased and any subse- quent clusters, if they existed, will be forever lost. The Master Key Utilities, version 1.7b Page 24 Master Key -- Disk Management Utility QUIT End Master Key and return to DOS Selecting QUIT from the main menu stops the execution of Master Key and return you to DOS (or other operating environment, if applicable). It returns to the same drive and directory that you started in, unless of course you switched the disk that you started from. QUIT has a synonym that can be used if you like. Pressing F10 while in the main menu also quits the program after confirma- tion. This is no shorter than pressing "Q <ENTER>", but it is included to be consistent with the exit command of other fun- ctions. When F10 is pressed, you'll see the message: Do you really want to exit Master Key? (Y/N) If you enter anything other than 'Y', Master Key continues to run as if nothing happened, waiting patiently for your next command. The Master Key Utilities, version 1.7b Page 25 Master Key -- Disk Management Utility Error Messages This section contains a list of the error messages you could encounter while running Master Key and brief descriptions of what they mean. The types of error messages are broken down into three categories: program errors, disk errors, and other errors. Program Errors Program errors deal with something going wrong within Master Key, or something happening that it couldn't deal with. All program errors result in the screen being cleared, a message displayed at the top of the screen stating that something went wrong, and the program aborting. The most common (and hopefully only) program error concerns running out of memory. If Master Key isn't able to read and keep a disk's entire directory into memory, it displays the following error message at the top of the screen: Master Key, version 1.7b is out of memory. There are several solutions available if you see this error message. First, if you don't have a full 640K of memory in- stalled in your computer, the easiest remedy is to purchase and install more memory. If more memory is not a solution for you (you already have 640K, you don't have enough $, etc.), removing a few memory resident programs, rebooting, and trying again is an alternative. Finally, if you are running in a multi-tasking environment, changing the .PIF or similar program description file for Master Key and allocating more minimum memory to it should help out. In all reality, most users will never run out of memory. Never. There will, however, be a few who have thousands of files on a hard disk that may encounter a problem. If you end up being one of those few, write me and I'll try to change Master Key to work for you. The next and only other program error message is a catch all for anything unexpected going wrong. When Master Key stumbles somewhere, it shows the following error message: Oops, an unexpected error ... This is the beginning of the error message. What follows is the error number, the location in the program where the error happened, and if possible a general description of the error. If you ever get this error, please write down everything that Master The Master Key Utilities, version 1.7b Page 26 Master Key -- Disk Management Utility Key displays and send me a copy of it. When doing so, please try to include as much information on your system and what you were doing when the error happened. This will help me to rid the program of any previously undetected errors. Disk Errors Program errors take the easy out -- they abort the program. Disk errors, on the other hand make Master Key open a window on the screen and if possible, continue. If a disk error occurs while Master Key is reading a directory, Master Key exits what- ever function you were trying to execute and returns to the main menu. Disk errors that occur elsewhere leave you where you were in the appropriate function when the error happened, possibly not reading or writing to the disk as you wanted to. All disk errors dealing with the disk itself start with the following message appearing as the first line in a window opened in the middle of the screen. > Disk Error! < Following that line is one of the following error messages describing what went wrong: The disk does not exist. A general disk error happened. Error during a disk read. Error during a disk write. Bad sector -- not found on disk. Unknown disk format. Error during disk seek. CRC error -- bad parity check. Disk not ready (door open, etc). Invalid drive number. The disk is write protected. Bad Request. To avoid going into a lengthy description on what each error message means, I'll describe a few more common types of errors. The number of disks that you can POSSIBLY have on your system and the number that you ACTUALLY have are usually different. Master Key always shows you, in the main menu, the letter range of the disks that you can possibly have. If you try to access a drive that is not in existence, Master Key will tell you that. You simply cannot access a drive that isn't present. Users with two floppy disk drives and no RAM disks won't be able to access drives C, D, and E no matter how much they try. An error message saying the disk does not exist is mainly infor- mational and is no reason for concern. The Master Key Utilities, version 1.7b Page 27 Master Key -- Disk Management Utility Hard disks and many "copy protected" floppy disks commonly have a few "bad" sectors. If you run across one of these bad sectors while using the DISK function, Master Key tells you so, but it is again no cause for concern. If you come across an error when editing a file using FILE, there is a lot of reason for concern. It would be much to your advantage to try to make a copy of that file as soon as possible (do you have a back up copy of it?), even though it may be too late to save the entire file. The next most common problem is running Master Key on non- DOS disks. Remember that Master Key is intended for use with ONLY DOS DISKS. Yes, this means that you won't be able to look at what's on disks from other operating systems nor a lot of game disks that have to be booted in drive A: to work. As with everything however, there is an exception to this. I briefly tried one disk emulation program that worked well enough on a non-DOS disk to allow me to use several of Master Key's functions on it without a problem. I suggest only using the functions DISK and FILE if you do this though. I am not sure that the other functions would operate as intended. The next type of disk error shows up a lot when accessing damaged and non-DOS disks. If Master Key finds that the FAT identification byte isn't one of the several valid ones when trying to read a directory, it shows the following message in a window: The disk ID byte is not valid. Your disk may be damaged or it may not be a DOS disk. If you know the disk was damaged, what the ID byte should be, and its correct location, you can try to edit the disk using the DISK function and make an attempt to reread the directory. Before doing so, back up the disk if at all possible. Other Errors Following the errors dealing with Master Key itself and your disks are the errors due to your actions or due to a conflict or impossibility somewhere. These messages are more informative than anything else, and no changes will be written to the current disk when you see one of these messages. The following error message can happen in the ALTER, ERASE, and RENAME functions. Before Master Key changes a directory entry for a file, it checks to make sure that the file is in the place it expects it to be. If you see the error message, Master The Master Key Utilities, version 1.7b Page 28 Master Key -- Disk Management Utility Key couldn't find the file in the place it thought it was in. This basically means, as the message states, that you probably changed disks somewhere along the line and forgot to CHANGE the current drive letting Master Key know you did this. File "OLD-FILE.NAM" was not found You might have switched disks. CHANGE disks and try again. Note that the word OLD-FILE.NAM refers to a file on your disk, while the words NEW-FILE.NAM and NEW-FIL?.* refer to new file name that you typed in in response to a prompt. In the ERASE function, you might see the following message if you try to erase a sub-directory. In this version of Master Key, erasing a sub-directory is not allowed. Master Key isn't able to erase sub-directories at this time. The next two error messages appear exclusively when you are in the RENAME function. The first, below, is shown when you try to rename a file to one that already exists in the current directory. In this example, the old file, OLD-FILE.NAM has been attempted to be renamed to the new file NEW-FILE.NAM when NEW- FILE.NAM is already a file in the directory. File "OLD-FILE.NAM" cannot be renamed to "NEW-FILE.NAM"; the new file name already exists. The error message below shows up when you try to rename a file to something ambiguous. The characters '?' and '*' are allowed from the DOS prompt, but unfortunately they are not from within Master Key. File "OLD-FILE.NAM" cannot be renamed to "NEW-FIL?.* "; '*' and '?' aren't allowed. The last two messages are seen only while using the UNERASE function. They appear only when a file cannot be unerased for one reason or another. The first message, below, appears when the first part of a file's data has been overwritten. In this case, it is almost impossible to easily recover all of the remaining data, so it simply won't be attempted. The Master Key Utilities, version 1.7b Page 29 Master Key -- Disk Management Utility File "OLD-FILE.NAM" cannot be unerased. It's first cluster is being used by another file. The next, and last message appears after unerasing a file was attempted. The message indicates that there weren't enough free clusters on the disk to restore the file to its original size. When this happens, Master Key will not save any of the restored clusters. File "'OLD-FILE.NAM" cannot be unerased. It's allocation chain cannot be restored. The Master Key Utilities, version 1.7b Page 30 Master Key -- Disk Management Utility WARNING ! Master Key is an extremely powerful program. In order to give you the most flexibility in working with your DOS disks, it has to assume any changes you make are the correct ones. No validation of any changes is done in any way. BEFORE doing any work with Master Key, I ask that you are conscious of the power you posses when running it and are very careful. Master Key is able, purposefully or accidentally, to be used to wipe out some very important parts of your disks and files. The words "BACK UP YOUR DATA" cannot be emphasized enough. If you do not already back up your work on a regular basis, make an effort to do so before trying to change something important with Master Key. If you are not well acquainted with the technical details of different disk and file structures, please do not select the DISK or FILE functions without extreme care. When using the DISK or FILE functions, double check your changes before making them permanent. The areas on the disk that should be avoided unless absolutely necessary are the boot record (the first sector), the FAT (the next few sectors), and any directory, including the root directory. Making blind changes in any of these areas gives a good possibility of rendering your disks useless for other appli- cations. If you find a pertinent need to change one of these areas, it would be a good idea to make a backup copy (with DISKCOPY or something similar) of your disk before you begin. The Master Key Utilities, version 1.7b Page 31 Fill Disk -- Disk Message Writer Fill Disk writes any message of your choice on all of the free sectors on any disk. It can be used to identify a disk as yours or just to place a note on a disk. The complete invocation for Fill Disk is: FD [d:] <message> If you wanted to fill the current disk with the message, "Eat at Joe's", you would type: FD Eat at Joe's If you wanted to fill the free sectors of drive A: with the message, "This is MY computer!", type: FD A: This is MY computer! You can fill the free sectors of your disks with any message, as long as it is 128 characters in length or less. Once Fill Disk starts, it shows you approximately how many sectors it has left to go before all of the free sectors are filled. Pressing any key at any time will abort the operation of Fill Disk and return you to the DOS prompt, leaving only part of the free sectors filled with your message. The Master Key Utilities, version 1.7b Page 32 Un Format -- Accidental Hard Disk Format Protector Un Format does what seems impossible. It, when used correctly, actually recovers a hard disk from an accidental format. Un Format protects you from a hard disk format, but it also protects you from Trojan Horse programs that modify your hard disk's FAT or root directory. Un Format makes these programs and accidental formats harmless. Now, by using Un Format, you can breathe easier and not be afraid of losing everything on your hard disk accidentally. The complete invocation for Un Format from the DOS prompt is: UF /SAVE or /RESTORE d: [<filename>] /SAVE Save the disk. The /SAVE option saves the drive d: in the default of specified filename. /RESTORE Restore. The /R option restores drive d: from the filename specified (or the default filename). Note: either /SAVE or /RESTORE must be specified. If neither are specified, Un Format won't run. d: The drive to save/restore. In most instances, this is C:, but it doesn't have to be. Any valid drive is accepted, however, Un Format works correctly only with hard disk drives. <filename> The name of the file to "save" drive d: in. This parameter is optional. If you don't specify a filename, Un Format will use the default filename of B:UnFormat.10a. Before using Un Format, you should copy UF.COM on a blank, formatted diskette, and use this disk as your Un Format disk. Although Un Format has gone through extensive testing to make sure it works in all situations, please test it on your system before relying on it. To test Un Format, follow these instructions or perform a similar sequence of events. 1. Backup your entire hard disk so that it can be restored after formatting if Un Format cannot restore it. 2. Save the hard disk on your Un Format disk. 3. Using CHKDSK, see what the hard disk looks like. 4. Format the hard disk. 5. Restore the hard disk using Un Format. The Master Key Utilities, version 1.7b Page 33 Un Format -- Accidental Hard Disk Format Protector 6. Using CHKDSK, see what the hard disk looks like. It should be the same as before the format. What was typed if you followed these instructions should look something like this: backup UF /SAVE c: chkdsk c: format c: UF /RESTORE c: chkdsk c: In order for Un Format to be useful, it has to be used regularly. If it isn't used often or in an organized method, it won't be of any use at all. I recommend two methods for using Un Format on a regular basis. The first method is to run Un Format from your AUTOEXEC.BAT file. By doing this, you will at least always have recently saved the hard disk. To run Un Format in the AUTOEXEC.BAT file, make sure that a formatted disk is available in drive B: when your computer starts up. Insert the following line in your AUTOEXEC.BAT file: UF /SAVE c: The next method is to create a .BAT file that will run Un Format before formatting your hard disk. This lets you restore the hard disk even when you did intend to format it. Rename FORMAT.COM to NEWFORMA.COM and create the file FORMAT.BAT as shown below. echo off if "%1" == "" goto UnFormat if "%1" == "C:" goto UnFormat if "%1" == "c:" goto UnFormat goto formatt :UnFormat echo Insert the Un Format diskette in drive B: Pause UF /SAVE c: :formatt newforma %1 By using either of these two methods, you should be protected from any accidental format of your hard disk. The Master Key Utilities, version 1.7b Page 34 Un Format -- Accidental Hard Disk Format Protector Un Format can also be used to safeguard against programs that may alter the FAT or root directory. These programs could be Trojan Horse programs, or they might be your own programs. I use Un Format when trying out new features for Master Key. If an accidental format does happen, put your Un Format diskette in a floppy drive and restore the hard disk by typing: UF /RESTORE c: After Un Format completes, your hard disk should be restored to look like it before it was formatted. "How can you Un Format a hard disk? Isn't that impossible?" No, restoring a hard disk after formatting it is not totally impossible. When a hard disk is formatted using all versions of DOS up to and including DOS 3.10, the FORMAT command does not really write over everything on the disk, it just gives that impression. The FORMAT command performs a soft format of the hard disk. A soft format basically means that the structure of the disk isn't modified, just rechecked. FORMAT, when run, checks the hard disk for bad sectors and then clears and rewrites the hard disk's FAT and root directory. Un Format is able to protect against an accidental hard disk format by writing all of the disk information, FAT information, and root directory in the file name specified. "Can it protect against all kinds of formatting?" Un Format unfortunately can only protect a hard disk against a format done by the FORMAT command or other programs that perform soft formatting of the hard disk. There are other programs that perform hard formatting of the hard disk. These programs actually change the structure of the hard disk, and thus cannot be protected by Un Format. Fortunately, the formatting programs that Un Format cannot protect against typically do not automatically format your hard disk. It is very unlikely that you could accidentally format your disk with one of these programs. "So, why can't you Un Format a floppy disk?" Un Format runs just as well if the disk it thinks it is saving is a floppy disk. The difference is that you won't gain anything by restoring a floppy disk. This is because FORMAT, when formatting a floppy disk, actually rewrites all of the The Master Key Utilities, version 1.7b Page 35 Un Format -- Accidental Hard Disk Format Protector sectors on the disk with a given fill character. If you restore a floppy disk using Un Format, the disk may appear to be fine, but all of the files lose all of their data and will be useless. "What if the file my hard disk is saved in gets changed?" Before Un Format does any restoration of a hard disk, it goes through many exhaustive checks to make sure everything is absolutely ok. First, it checks to make sure that the disk you are restoring and the disk that was saved are the same. Then, Un Format checks to see if the file the disk was saved in has changed in any way. If anything at all is different, Un Format will not make any changes to the hard disk. It is nearly impos- sible for a corrupted or maliciously altered file to be restored on a hard disk. The Master Key Utilities, version 1.7b Page 36 Zero File -- Total File Elimination Utility Zero File completely removes any trace of a file from your disks. It can be used to ensure that no part of a confidential file's data can be left on a disk, or it can be used to permanently get rid of any file. THERE IS NO WAY TO UNERASE OR RESTORE A FILE ZEROED BY ZERO FILE! The complete invocation of Zero File from the DOS prompt is: ZF [/KEEP] [/YES] <filename> /KEEP Keep the filename. Normally, when Zero File zeroes a file, it also erases its filename. If you would like to keep the name visible on the disk, use the /KEEP option. Using this option will still remove all traces of the file(s) selected, but its name will appear in the directory. /YES Yes. Before Zero File actually zeroes a file, it usually asks you if you want to zero the file and waits for you to type "Y" or "N" before doing anything. Using the /YES option is the equivalent of replying Yes to this question. Use /YES with a lot of caution, especially when specifying ambiguous filenames like *.COM or *.* since you could easily and inadvertently wipe out whole directories. <filename> This is the name of the file(s) you want to zero. This name is entered just like you would for the DOS erase command. The file can be unambiguous like LETTER.TXT or ambiguous like LETTER.00? or LETTER.*. The filename can include the entire or partial directory as well as the drive letter where the file(s) are located. To zero all .BAK files, use a filename of *.BAK. To zero all files in the \LOTUS\WORK directory on drive C:, use a filename of C:\LOTUS\WORK\*.*. To zero all .COM files in the current directory's parent directory, use a filename of ..\*.COM. Any file zeroed by zero file will lose all of its data and cannot be restored in any way. The file can be Unerased with Master Key, but the Unerased file will be filled with hex 00. Be careful before zeroing any file and make sure it is the file you want to zero. Once a file has been zeroed, it has been lost forever unless you have made a backup copy of it somewhere. THERE IS NO WAY TO UNERASE OR RESTORE A FILE ZEROED BY ZERO FILE! The Master Key Utilities, version 1.7b Page 37 Program Notes Since The Master Key Utilities were conceived, they have gone through many changes, all starting from a simple routine to draw a box. The box drawing routine is no longer present in any of the code, but it was the reason why the programs got started. Master Key was written and rewritten almost entirely several times to bring it to the place it is now. After the first few versions of Master Key were introduced, more features were asked for than could fit into one 64k .COM file, so Master Key grew into The Master Key Utilities. The Master Key Utilities were written entirely in TURBO pascal, aided with a few inline sec- tions of code. As the model for the initial Master Key program, I used various commercial and public domain utilities of the same type. I picked out the best or most useful features from all of the programs I used and improved upon them wherever I saw possible. After the initial version, the features you now see in Master Key as well as in all of The Master Key Utilities were asked for by you, the users of The Master Key Utilities! Your comments, suggestions, friendly criticisms, bug reports, and improvement ideas are always welcome. Please feel free to contact me at the address below. R. P. Gage 1125 6th St. N. #43 Columbus, MS 39701 The Master Key Utilities, version 1.7b Page 38