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README.1ST
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1989-04-23
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WUTIL Release Notes for Version 3.12 -- April 23, 1989
WUTIL V3.12 is distributed with permission from Anthony G. Camas
Copyright 1986 Anthony G. Camas
Copyright 1989 Vinzenz Esser
All Rights Reserved
The author of V3 of WUTIL can be reached at this address:
Vinzenz Esser
Waldstrasse 2E
D-8052 Moosburg 2
West-Germany
Contents of this archive (Files marked with * have changed from the previous
version V3.11):
*WUTIL.COM is the main WUTIL program
*WUTIL.000 is the overlay file for WUTIL
WUTIL.MAN is the manual for WUTIL
WUTILDSK.DAT is the file containing disk descriptions
PREBOOT.LDX is the hard disk primary (pre) boot loader
*SECBOOT.LDX is the hard disk secondary boot loader
*README.1ST contains release notes and instructions (this file)
You are STRONGLY encouraged to extract, print, and read (or at least scan)
the manual first. Yes, it's well over 40 pages long, but those pages
contain much useful information. You must at least read the installation
section to understand how to put the files on your disk so that WUTIL will
run correctly.
Also, if you have previously used an older version of WUTIL, you should
read the summary of changes appearing at the end of this file to see what
has changed between the version you have been using and this new version.
SPECIAL NOTES:
WUTIL is not entirely compatible with the DISKPART package offered by CHS
Corp. DISKPART does not appear to properly format one of the control areas
on the disk (the AST area). This causes a warning message in WUTIL.
DISKPART, however, does seem to behave with disks formatted/partitioned
with WUTIL.
If you have a hard disk >20MB and it is initialized with WUTIL, then FDISK,
the hard disk partitioning utility supplied with MS-DOS V3.10 will not run.
That's because FDISK seems to expect the BAT sectors in track 0 of the hard
disk ignoring the fact that there is not enough room in track 0 for all the
BAT sectors required on a hard disk >20MB. WUTIL however knows that there
is not enough room in track 0 and therefore moves all the necessary BAT
sectors to a more suitable location (mostly track 4). The fact that FDISK
doesn't run isn't considered a problem, since you can always use WUTIL to
partition your hard disk. There is no need for FDISK.
People trying to format very large disks (bigger than 20MB) or disks with
non-standard geometries (other than four surfaces) are advised to read
Appendix A of the WUTIL manual for special information important to them.
Certainly, if you are contemplating buying such a unit and you are confi-
dent that WUTIL will enable you to do so, you should read this section
first and understand some of what you're up against. While this is not as
much of a problem now as it has been with previous version of WUTIL, you
should still exercise some caution.
To determine if your Rainbow contains one or two hard disks WUTIL searches
for the CHS driver in the Rainbow's memory. If the driver is found then
WUTIL is able to access the second drive. The driver must be loaded from a
line 'DEVICE=<driver-name>' in your CONFIG.SYS file at boot time. Please
note that due to the design of the CHS driver it will NOT stay in memory,
if the second hard disk does not contain at least one MS-DOS partition at
boot time. In that case WUTIL will not be able to access drive 2, even
though it's physically connected to the Rainbow.
FIXES AND ENHANCEMENTS FROM VERSION 3.11 TO VERSION 3.12:
The hard disk partition menu now accepts the RETURN key in addition to the
DO and keypad ENTER keys as the termination key after selecting the boot
partition. To take advantage of this new feature on an already partitio-
ned winchester, copy the new SECBOOT.LDX to the hard disk by selecting main
menu option 6 'Copy new boot loaders onto hard disk'.
A bug was fixed which caused version 3.11 to not start on a Rainbow A under
certain circumstances.
FIXES AND ENHANCEMENTS FROM VERSION 3.1 TO VERSION 3.11:
A bug was fixed which caused version 3.1 to hang, when run under MS-DOS
version 2.11.
FIXES AND ENHANCEMENTS FROM VERSION 3.0 TO VERSION 3.1:
This version now supports a second hard disk connected to the Rainbow via
the Micro CHS dual winchester controller.
When repartitioning a hard disk containing partitions with an operating
system unknown to WUTIL (VENIX in this case) and this partition is supposed
to be left unchanged WUTIL now correctly writes the partition's name into
the new DPD block instead of replacing the name with a null string.
The number of FAT sectors of an MS-DOS partition now will be written into
the appropriate location in the DPD block.
FIXES AND ENHANCEMENTS FROM VERSION 2.0 TO VERSION 3.0:
The major enhancement is that WUTIL now is compatible with the final re-
lease of MS-DOS version 3.10. Please note that due to some internals of
MS-DOS version 3.10 partition sizes of 1025, 1026, and 1027 tracks will not
work. Therefore WUTIL will not allow partitions with these sizes to be
created.
In the partition editor the sequence of operating systems the SELECT key
cycles through has been changed. The first operating system after --GAP--
is MS-DOS now, the next one is CP/M, instead of vice versa. This way, if
the partition to be added contains more than 1024 tracks, it won't be de-
creased to 1024 tracks when cycyling from --GAP-- to MS-DOS via CP/M. And
then mostly MS-DOS partitions are created nowadays anyways.
RD32/ST251 (40MB) support has been added to the WUTILDSK.DAT file.
A very common reason for getting the error message 'CAN'T FIND WINCHESTER
INTERRUPT SERVICE IN MS-DOS' when starting WUTIL is, having a TSR program
installed which took over the winchester interrupt vector. To make the user
aware of that a message to that behalf has been added to the error display.
In various places it is no longer possible to enter values beyond the Rain-
bow's or the installed hard disk's limits: When entering data about a new
hard disk the number of cylinders can not exceed 1024 and the number of
heads can not exceed 8, which is a total of 67MB. These limits are set by
the design of the Rainbow's hard disk controller. In the Dump Sector op-
tion it is no longer possible to increment the track number beyond the last
track of your hard disk. The last track of your hard disk is considered to
be the last logical track before the manufacturing cylinder.
A bug in the Print Screen routine has been fixed. This bug caused the last
three lines of the screen to not be dumped if the Rainbow was running on
50 Hz.
A column displaying total number of tracks per partition has been added to
the display of the current hard disk status.
In the partitioning editor the partition size now can be increased/decrea-
sed in 100 track increments by pressing the right/left arrow keys together
with the Ctrl key. In the 'Dump Sector' option the track number can be in-
cremented/decremented in 100 track increments now by pressing the right/
left arrow keys together with both the Shift and Ctrl keys.
FIXES AND ENHANCEMENTS FROM VERSION 1.1 TO VERSION 2.0:
The maximum number of tracks that WUTIL can handle on a disk has been in-
creased from 5000 to 15000, making the capacity of WUTIL now something like
117MB, a limit which should bother hardly anyone. It can be easily changed
through a parameter in the source code if it's still too low for you.
Minor changes were made so WUTIL will work under MS-DOS version 3.x (for
those who have it).
Also for those with access to version 3 of MS-DOS, WUTIL will now permit
MS-DOS partitions to be as big as almost 32MB. This only works if you are
running under version 3, otherwise, the limits remain the same. The maxi-
mum and minimum size checking in the partition editor was also revamped and
a few little bugs have been fixed.
The "partition information" display screen no longer has the "init" column,
since all partitions were (are) always initialized anyway.
Custom-made (and better working) PREBOOT.LDX and SECBOOT.LDX files are now
provided with WUTIL. Consequently, the code designed to patch the DEC-
supplied loaders during installation has been removed.
WUTIL was not correctly indicating that there was no auto-boot partition in
the HOM block. The result was that a "non system diskette" message would
occur rather than the appearance of the boot menu. This has been fixed. A
disk can be corrected by simply bringing up the "set auto-boot" function
and pressing DO again with the arrow still pointing at "no auto boot".
This procedure is not necessary in cases where there WAS an auto boot par-
tition, only where there was not.
When we added code in version 1.1 to bypass formatting of manufacturer
tracks if they are readable, we meant well, but it didn't work. If there
IS manufacturer data in these tracks, it is written using 256-byte sectors;
therefore reads would fail and the tracks would be formatted anyway. A fu-
ture version will read these correctly, but for now, we will always skip
formatting these tracks so as to avoid destroying any data which may be
there.
In partitioning, logical units are now assigned to CP/M and CCP/M as a unit
(CP/M first, then CCP/M) and the total number of partitions allowed is four
total for the two operating systems. This is because CCP/M evidentally
also accesses CP/M partitions, which we didn't know.
The manual has seen some revisions and the addition of a new "Questions &
Answers" section in appendix B.
FIXES AND ENHANCEMENTS FROM VERSION 1.0 TO VERSION 1.1:
A nasty typo caused WUTIL to misjudge the number of sectors it needed to
write alternate sector information (AST blocks) onto the disk. This could
cause several kinds of "flaky" behavior. The problem has been corrected.
The algorithm which WUTIL uses to place control blocks on the beginning of
the disk has been changed so that WUTIL puts the blocks in locations closer
to those where the DEC winchester utility puts them. Evidentally, many
utilities, including (sadly) parts of MS-DOS and CP/M provided by Digital,
assume that certain data is in particular locations on the disk rather than
reading the HOM block to find where the data is. A new copy of
WUTILDSK.DAT is also provided with this release which includes disk defini-
tions with these new block placements.
Some manufacturers of hard disk drives (all those provided to DEC) write
"manufacturer data" to tracks in the last cylinder of the disk. WUTIL used
to write over this stuff, which some people would like to keep. Now, WUTIL
will, when formatting drives, try to read the first sector in each of the
tracks in the manufacturing cylinder. If these reads succeed, then the
formatting and overwriting of these tracks is bypassed. Thus, WUTIL should
now leave manufacturing data alone if it is there, but format this area if
it is not.
FIXES AND ENHANCEMENTS FROM VERSION BETA-0.9 TO VERSION 1.0:
WUTIL now comes up properly on Rainbow 100A's. We were counting on a
feature of Turbo Pascal which didn't exist. Now we don't.
The format and initialize function now gives you four options as to how
"reliably" (slowly, also) you want it to work. You can select double-veri-
fy, single-verify, format only (no verify), or initialize-only modes.
The MAIN SCREEN key now works in the "enter you own disk information"
screen of the formatting function.
You can now use the sector dump function even if your disk is not initia-
lized with the required data structures. If your disk does not have a HOME
block, then it must have 4 surfaces, however.
If the AST or BAT areas of the disk are not readable by WUTIL, it now con-
siders this a non-fatal error and tries to continue processing after a war-
ning message. This was done to try and make WUTIL work with disks format-
ted with the CHS formatter.
Also for CHS compatibility, WUTIL now sorts the list of partitions by star-
ting track number on input. CHS does not always write them onto the disk
that way, which confused the WUTIL partition editor into thinking there
were gaps on the disk that weren't.
A few other internal changes for CHS compatibility were also made.
For disks with 8 surfaces, WUTIL now tries to apply patches to PREBOOT and
SECBOOT loaders while writing them onto the disk during initialization.
Previous versions required manual patching with DEBUG.
[end of README.1ST for WUTIL version 3.0]
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