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The Original Amiga Disk Salvage Program
Recovering your data for over seven years
Cheap Manual
for
DiskSalv
Version 2
Revision 11.25
June 13, 1993
Copyright 1992, 1993 by Dave Haynie
All Rights Reserved
COPYRIGHT
This manual is copyright 1992, 1993 by Dave Haynie. All Rights
Reserved. As part of the DiskSalv2 V11.25 release, this manual may be used in
electronic or printed form along with the DiskSalv2 program. It may not be
sold in any form, though a reasonable copying and handling charge is
acceptable, as long as the complete DiskSalv2 distribution is included.
DISCLAIMER
The information and the DiskSalv program are provided "as is" without
warranty of any kind, either expressed or implied. The entire risk as to the
accuracy of the information herein is assumed by you. Dave Haynie does not
warrant, guarantee, or make any representations regarding the use of, or the
results of the use of, the information or the DiskSalv program in terms of
correctness, accuracy, reliability, currentness, or otherwise. In no event
will Dave Haynie be liable for direct, indirect, incidental, or consequential
damages resulting from any defect in the information or the DiskSalv program
even if he has been advised of the possibility of such damages.
CREDITS
This manual was prepared with
anro
, an nroff-like utility by Steve
Anderson. With all the sophisticated word processors and DTPs I have around, I
couldn't find anything that would simply give me some formatted ANSI text.
Until
everyone
has a way to deal with IFF-FTXT, ANSI will remain the only
printer independent formatted text format available.
Amiga, AmigaDOS, Intuition, KickStart, and Workbench are trademarks
of Commodore-Amiga, Inc.
The DiskSalv program, its code, this manual, the DiskSalv icons, and
anything else distributed with this package are the original work of Dave
Haynie. Thanks go out to the Commodore-Amiga Software Engineering group for
suggestions on the DiskSalv GUI and other Amiga software standards. Countless
others assisted with suggestions, testing, and miscellaneous feedback which has
also proved invaluable.
-Dave Haynie
DiskSalv Version 2 Release 11.25 Page 3
0
.
INTRODUCTION
DiskSalv Version 2 is a disk recovery program for all Amiga file
system devices that use any of the 2.04/2.1/3.0 file systems. DiskSalv will
scan (analyze) a bad disk volume for anything that can be recovered, and will
restore these items to any AmigaDOS volume. It can also attempt to fix a bad
volume in place under most circumstances. DiskSalv is a complete redesign of
the orignal DiskSalv program, with a new AmigaDOS-2.0-compliant command-line
interface, new Intuition interface, and tons of new features.
This is designed to be a fairly complete, quickly written and
minimally edited manual of DiskSalv Version 2's features. The built-in help
system works as an adjunct to this, and it works simply -- press the HELP key
with the mouse positioned over something, and a short description of that
something will pop up in a requester.
Better documentation is planned, but it won't be free. I'm currently
working on a professional quality manual with pictures, better "how to", "why
bother", and "theory of it all" sections. Of course, the operative phrase here
is "currently working". It ain't done yet. I hope to complete it by the time
I do a general shareware release. Since it will be several megabytes of
PostScript output by the time its done, and I really have no philosphical
objection to making a little beer money here and there, this will be offered up
as a printed manual as part of a semi-commercial version of DiskSalv. This is
all explained in the "Licensing and Distribution" section. Additionally, the
core of that manual will become an AmigaGuide manual, and that will come with
the printed version. I just figured I would mention this all here before
confusing you with the quick and dirty version to follow.
1
.
STARTING UP
DiskSav Version 2 (from here on referred to as "DiskSalv") is a
program designed to "salvage" damaged hard disks. There are two basic classes
of salvage operation, "Recover-by-Copy" and "Fix-in-Place". In the former case,
DiskSalv analyzes a disk and attempts to restore any files and directories from
a damaged AmigaDOS file system device to a good one. In the latter case,
DiskSalv attempts to find faulty disk objects and remove them from the disk's
directory/file hierarchy so that the disk's FileSystem will validate it.
1
.
1 CLI OPERATION
In the simplest case, DiskSalv can be used very much like DiskSalv
V1.42, the AmigaDOS "DiskCopy" program, or any number of other CLI-based
programs. The user simply types a command at the command line, and the program
goes to work. For example, to recover files from a bad disk in DH0: and
restore them on a good disk DH1:, the user will type:
1> DiskSalv FROM DH0: TO DH1:
Here the "FROM" and "TO" required CLI keywords. There are quite a few more
keywords, which control a good portion of DiskSalv's operation. However, to
access every feature, it's necessary to use the program interactively under
Intuition. The AmigaDOS template is displayed as follows:
Page 4 DiskSalv Version 2 Release 11.25
DiskSalv Version 2 Copyright (c) 1991-1993 by Dave Haynie
FROM/K, TO/K, MODE/K, FILESYSTEM/K, DEFAULTFS/K, TAGCHAR/K,
PUBSCREEN/K, MEMCHUNK/N, PATHMAX/N, DISKCACHE/N, LOWMEM/S,
NOSIZECHECK/S, QUICKSCAN/S, NOWARNING/S, NODATES/S, NONOTES/S,
NOPROTECT/S, KEEPDOS/S,KILLDOS/S, NODEEPSCAN/S, INTERACTIVE/S,
REJECTION/N, MAKELINKS/S,S MALLWINDOW/S, BIGBLOCKS/T
The meaning of these keywords is given below. Note that any keyword can also
be used as an icon variable (tooltype).
FROM
The "FROM" keyword specifies an input device, the device that will be
operated on. This must be a DOS device, not a subdirectory or
assignment, and it must be based on one of the standard file systems
with underlying device driver.
TO
The "TO" keyword specifies an output device, the device that will
receive any recover-by-copy files that DiskSalv finds. This may be
any AmigaDOS device, volume, or subdirectory. If a non-existant
subdirectory is specified, one will be generated.
MODE
There are several kinds of functions that DiskSalv will run. The
default is "Salvage", which causes DiskSalv to work just like the
original DiskSalv. Other modes cause other actions:
SALVAGE
This is the basic Recover-by-Copy function. DiskSalv attempts to
restore every file it finds from the input device to the output
device. The user can select the files to actually restore.
UNDELETE
This is another Recover-by-Copy function. It is used on undamaged
partitions to find deleted files. The user can interactively pick
which files are actually restored in this way.
VALIDATE
This is the simplest Fix-In-Place function. It can repair an device
that hasn't been severely damaged. On most devices, the scan used in
this mode is much faster than other scans, but it can slow down on
very large volumes. As with all Fix-In-Place functions, any file
that must be eliminated from disk will be displayed in a file list
once the fix operation has completed.
REPAIR
This is a more advanced Fix-In-Place function. It does a traditional
DiskSalv scan, and it can find more files than the Validate function
can. It can also live with partitions that are more damaged than
those Validate will handle.
UNFORMAT
This function runs a Fix-In-Place operation on a disk that has been
accidently formatted (hopefully non-destructively). It's similar to
Repair, but it assumes that the disk root is invalid.
FILESYSTEM
DiskSalv Version 2 Release 11.25 Page 5
This allows the user to specify the file system to use on the input
device. Normally, DiskSalv will determine a partition's file system
from its root block. If for some reason that information is
unavailable or wrong, this allows the file system type to be
specified by force.
OFS
Original AmigaDOS FileSystem.
FFS
1.3-compatible Fast FileSystem.
OFS Intl
.
International character set aware version of OFS.
International file systems treat diacritical characters
properly with respect to the case independence expected in
an Amiga file system.
FFS Intl
.
International character set aware version of FFS.
DC
-
OFS
Directory caching version of OFS. Directory caching file
systems keep a secondary packed record of file data to
provide fast directory listings.
DC
-
FFS
Directory caching version of FFS.
Best
-
Guess
DiskSalv will pick one of the FileSystems it knows about,
based on an analysis of the disk done during the Scan. This
is the standard default file system (eg, default if no
alternate default is selected).
DEFAULTFS
This allows the user to specify the fallback FileSystem to use on the
input device. Normally, DiskSalv will determine a partition's
FileSystem from its root block, but if that root block is damaged,
DiskSalv needs this fallback.
TAGCHAR
This allows the user to specify which character to use for tagging
selected files on the Output screen file browser. The default is
'*'.
PUBSCREEN
This specifies the public screen for DiskSalv to start up on. If
none is specified, DiskSalv will start up on the Workbench screen
(eg, default public screen).
MEMCHUNK
This specifies the memory chunk size for DiskSalv's chunky allocator
to use. By default, this is 4K, and can be set between 1K and 128K.
PATHMAX
This specifies the maximum length of a file path. The default value
is 512 bytes, and can be set between 256 bytes and 4K.
Page 6 DiskSalv Version 2 Release 11.25
DISKCACHE
This specifies the number of blocks to be used for the disk cache
(which is actually a pre-fetch buffer). The default size is 8
blocks, and can be set between 0 (no cache) and 255 blocks.
LOWMEM
This specifies low-memory mode. If DiskSalv runs out of memory on a
system in normal mode, it may be successful in low-memory mode. This
automatically causes the chunky allocator, file path buffer, and disk
cache to go to minimum sizes. It cuts out a number of other internal
things that generally just affect performance rather than success.
NOSIZECHECK
This inhibits automatic size checking of the output volume.
Normally, DiskSalv watches the size of the output volume to have an
idea ahead of time that a volume will fill up. Some devices, such as
RAM:, are dynamically sized and always indicate full when asked, so
this parameter is mainly intended for such devices (DiskSalv actually
invokes this automatically for RAM:, but it would have to be
specified manually for other such devices).
QUICKSCAN
This specifies a faster disk scanning mode. The speed of a disk scan
is improved by cutting down on the visual display. DiskSalv will
still show a "gas-guage" indicator, but it won't list objects as they
are encountered.
NOWARNING
DiskSalv will normally attach a warning or error message, as a
FileNote, to any file it restores via a Recover-by-Copy operation
that it considers suspect or bad. This option will inhibit such
action.
NODATES
This option will inhibit restoration of the original file date in
Recover-by-Copy operations.
NONOTES
This option will inhibit restoration of the original FileNote in
Recover-by-Copy operations (though warning notes will override
original notes).
NOPROTECT
This option will inhibit restoration of the original protection codes
in Recover-by-Copy operations.
KEEPDOS
The FileSystem (eg, AmigaDOS) is usually locked out from the input
device during scan and recovery operations. This option will prevent
such a lockout. Fix-In-Place operations are not affected by this, as
they absolutely require a FileSystem lockout since they are modifying
the input disk. Note that allowing any writes to the input disk
during a DiskSalv operation will almost certainly cause DiskSalv to
malfunction.
KILLDOS
This option forces DiskSalv to do its job without using any device
directed DOS functions or file system packets. Normally, DiskSalv
DiskSalv Version 2 Release 11.25 Page 7
uses a handfull of DOS library functions on input disks. This is
designed to make DiskSalv safe for use on disks that crash AmigaDOS
or the particular file system in use. This is a somewhat dangerous
option, since it prevents DiskSalv from locking the file system out
of a device (since that requires a file system packet). It works
best on devices that can't be given to AmigaDOS because they're too
damaged. Note that DOS is automatically avoided on unmounted
devices.
NODEEPSCAN
This inhibits extra low-level processing from being done floppy
disks. Such processing can recover data not normally accessable
through the trackdisk.device, but it causes extra memory to be used.
INTERACTIVE
This forces DiskSalv into interactive operation (eg, it waits for
user input). When run from the CLI, DiskSalv will by default do as
much as it can non-interactively before going into interactive mode.
REJECTION
This specifies a filter strength, between 1 and 10, that influences
DiskSalv's assessment of whether or not a disk block matches a
specific block type. This is generally left at the default, 6.
MAKELINKS
This causes DiskSalv to actually create links on the output volume.
Normally it instead creates a script file which will create the
links.
SMALLWINDOW
This causes DiskSalv to build a minimal scanning display window, even
on large screens.
BIGBLOCKS
This lets the user specifiy whether support for multiple sectors per
block is enabled. On pre-V39 systems, occasionally DOS devices
claimed for some reason to have more than one sector per block.
Since real support of this didn't appear until the V40 FileSystem,
which apparently needs V39 to run, multiple sector per block support
is off by default in on a pre-V39 system, on by default for V39
systems and above.
1
.
2 WORKBENCH OPERATION
DiskSalv can be run from the Workbench by double-clicking on its
Icon. Normally, this brings up DiskSalv interactively, where options are set
via standard 2.0-level Intuition interface objects. However, any of the
command-line parameters may be set as Icon ToolTypes to set DiskSalv up for
other-than-standard default conditions and other special things.
1
.
3 THE DISKSALV GUI
No matter how you enter DiskSalv, you're going to wind up seeing some
aspect of the program's GUI. If you run interactively either from the CLI or
from Workbench, you will start out in the "Input Window". Here is where various
parameters are set that control how the program will "scan", or learn about, a
Page 8 DiskSalv Version 2 Release 11.25
given input disk. Once all input information is set up, the program moves to
the "Scan Window", which basically monitors disk scan and Fix-In-Place
operation, where applicable. If it's appropriate (files are found in a
Recover-by-Copy mode or damaged files are found during a Fix-In-Place
operation), the Scan Window will give way to the "Output Window". This windows
accepts input to select the objects that will be restored and the device to
restore them to.
While DiskSalv's interface is based on Intuition, there are keyboard
equivalents for practically anything you can do from gadgets or windows. The
gadget shortcuts are generally indicated by an inderlined letter in the text of
the particular gadget, and will change from language to language. For gadgets
that cycle or scroll, the direction of movement will change based on whether
the shortcut is typed with the shift key pressed. A few windows have gadgets
with extra functions or non-text gadgets that have keyboard shortcuts. Those
shortcuts are mentioned in the this manual in the particular section relating
to that gadet.
Menus also have keyboard shortcuts, which are always invoked with the
right Amiga key and a single letter pressed together. These are indicated in
the menus, in the normal Intuition fashion. Note that these, too, can change
according to the localization of the program, so the actual values aren't
called out here.
2
.
0 THE INPUT WINDOW
The Input Window is where a device is selected. There are a series
of gadgets and menu items that can control the way things work here. The
gadgets are as follows:
Device For Scan
This list gadget displays a list of recoverable devices. One of
these must be selected to run a scan. These are all listed by
physical AmigaDOS name, never by volume or assigned name.
FileSystem
:
This gadget is a cycle gadget that allows any of the six
aforementioned file systems to be selected. When you select a
device, this gadget will be set to DiskSalv's best guess at that
device's file system, or the default if DiskSalv can't make a good
guess. Therefore, the user is able to pick a different one if
DiskSalv didn't make a good choice. See section 1.1, "FILESYSTEM",
for a list of these. The "Best-Guess" option runs a special
statistics tracking and analysis routine to determine the most likely
file system for any given device.
Mode
:
This cycle gadget lets the user select an appropriate recovery
operation. Interlocks are managed here to make certain that the
specified operation and specified device will work together. See
section 1.1, "MODE", for a list of the FileSystem names.
Set Filter
...
This gadget brings up the "Disk Scan Filter Options" window. This
window allows various options to be set to control partial scans of a
disk, exclusions by AmigaDOS pattern name or protection bits, etc.
See section 2.1 for a full explanation of this window.
DiskSalv Version 2 Release 11.25 Page 9
Device Info
...
This gadget brings up a "Physical Device Information" requester which
gives partitioning and other low-level information on the selected
device.
Scan
This gadget starts the disk analysis phase of the DiskSalv program.
Once the other phases are complete, the user may return to the Input
Window without having to restart DiskSalv.
There are two menus on the Input Window. One of these can call up a
variety of miscellaneous functions, the other controls toggling of a few
control options, and the ability to save these back to the DiskSalv icon. The
mens are as follows:
Project
/
About
...
This item brings up a requester with information on the version of
DiskSalv, its distribution license, some Shareware data, and where to
write me about DiskSalv.
Project
/
Help
...
This item brings up a requester with a brief explanation of the Input
Window.
Project
/
Log File
...
This item brings up a file requester for the specification of a log
file. This file must be on a device other than the input device.
When a log file is specified, DiskSalv will write a record of its
activity during all phases out to that file.
Project
/
Restore
...
This item brings up the "Stream Restoration Options" requester, which
allows the user to specify input and output paths for restoration of
a DiskSalv archive file. Please see section 3 for information on
creating DiskSalv archive files.
Project
/
Custom
...
This item brings up the "Custom Window". The Custom Window is an
advanced option that can be used to search a disk for logical
partitions or specify partitions based on the low-level components.
Project
/
Save Device
...
This item saves the currently selected "Device for Scan" as a
description file for the AmigaDOS Mount command.
Project
/
Load Device
...
This item loads a specified AmigaDOS device description file as a
DiskSalv "virtual" device. The name of the device will be the name
of the description file.
Project
/
Quit
This item closes the DiskSalv program. Its function is identical to
that of the Close gadget on the DiskSalv main window.
Settings
/
DOS Lock
The FileSystem (eg, AmigaDOS) is usually locked out from the input
device during scan and recovery operations. This option toggles
prevention of such a lockout. Fix-In-Place operations are not
Page 10 DiskSalv Version 2 Release 11.25
affected by this, as they absolutely require a file system lockout
since they are modifying the input disk. Note that allowing any
writes to the input disk during a DiskSalv operation will almost
certainly cause DiskSalv to malfunction.
Settings
/
Low Memory
This option toggles low-memory mode. If DiskSalv runs out of memory
on a system in normal mode, it may be successful in low-memory mode.
This automatically causes the chunky allocator, file path buffer, and
disk cache to go to minimum sizes. It cuts out a number of other
internal things that generally just affect performance rather than
success.
Settings
/
Small Window
This option toggles automatic window sizing. Normall, the DiskSalv
scanner will open a large window if it finds the current screen
supports it. This will force use of the small window for all scans,
regardless of the screen size.
Settings
/
Quick Scan
This option selects the quick scanning option for the scanner. With
this set, the scanning process will run faster by not displaying any
data on the files encountered.
Settings
/
Save Settings
This options saves various Input screen variables to the DiskSalv
tools icon.
2
.
1 THE DISK SCAN FILTER OPTIONS WINDOW
The "Disk Scan Filter Options" window allows several modifiers to be
set that affect the scan phase of a Recover-by-Copy operations. These
modifiers are ignored by Fix-In-Place operations, which must examine a disk in
its entirety to perform correctly. The window has standard "Ok" and "Cancel"
gadgets, which use and ignore the effect of the current filter options
settings, respectively. The other gadgets are as follows:
File Pattern
The string gadget takes in an AmigaDOS file pattern. During the scan
of a disk, any file matching this pattern is recorded, while any file
not matching is ignored. This acts on links as well as files, but
not on directories, since at the time a directory is scanned, there's
no way to tell if it will be needed by a child object that's further
into the disk.
Disk Scan Range
This gadget is composed of two pointers, which can be moved to modify
the part of the input disk that is actually scanned. The start and
finishing blocks on that disk are indicated next to the gadget. The
gadget is hard-wired to make certain that the start of the disk is
below the finish. This can be moved from the keyboard with left and
right cursor keys, unshifted or shifted.
Protection Bits
This is a group of gadgets which control matching of each file
encountered against the seven defined protection bits. A "Don't
Care" setting matches any level, a "Match Set" setting matches a bit
DiskSalv Version 2 Release 11.25 Page 11
that's logically set, and a "Match Clear" setting matches a bit
that's logically clear.
2
.
2 THE CUSTOM WINDOW
The Custom Window is a fork off the main DiskSalv Input Window that
is used for dealing with special device cases. An unknown disk, a disk with
lost partitioning information, or other such problems can be solved here. An
input device is entered via exec-level device name and unit number. The user
can specify the partitioning information or ask DiskSalv to go looking for
partitions. In a search, the partition's logical name can be specified as a
search target, or DiskSalv can be instructed to find all partitions on the
disk. There are fifteen gadgets here:
Create
The Create gadget builds one "virtual device" based on the
information supplied here. This requires the basic partitioning
information, exec device name and unit, and a DOS Name which is used
in the "Device For Scan" list gadget. Any such virtual device is
listed in parentheses, and only the "Salvage" operation can be used
on them.
Search
This function starts a search on the given disk for one volume that
matches the given pattern.
Analyze
This function starts a scan of the defined range of the disk for any
partitions. The base block of a partition will be used as its name
if no root is found. If a root is found, its name will be used
instead in the "Device For Scan" list.
Cancel
Leave this window without performing any kind of scan.
Device Name
:
This is the Exec device used to manage the disk, such as
"scsi.device". Be very careful in selecting this properly.
Name
/
Pattern
:
This is a DOS Name for "Created" volumes, or a pattern to apply to a
search for a specific volume or as a volume-name filter for full
analysis.
Unit
:
The unit number for the Exec device names in "Device Name". Be very
careful in selecting this properly.
Sectors
/
Track
:
This is the number of sectors assigned per disk track.
Bytes
/
Sector
:
This is the basic block size for the device. While most things in
the system are set up for 512 byte blocks, larger disks may use
larger block sizes. These are in powers-of-two, 512 bytes or
larger.
Page 12 DiskSalv Version 2 Release 11.25
Sectors
/
Block
:
This parameter allows for a variable effective block size per
partition while having a consistent number of bytes/sector throughout
a disk. Block size is Sectors/Block * Bytes/Sector. By default, this
is only available under V39 or later file systems.
Low Sector
:
This is the starting position on the input device to be searched.
Since we're not searching a logical partition but in fact a physical
disk, this number is a direct disk sector number (this specifies the
physical block to map to logical block 0 for the Create operation).
High Sector
:
This is the last physical block to scan for all operations.
Flags
:
These are device-driver specific flags.
Memory Type
:
This cycle gadget allows the user to specify the type of memory to
use for disk buffers. Types include DEFAULT, CHIP, FAST, and
DMA-24.
There are only two menu items on the single menu attached to the
Custom Window. The first is the "Project/Help..." item, which pops up a
requester box describing the Custom Window. The other item is "Project/Quit",
which will terminate the DiskSalv program.
3
.
THE SCAN WINDOW
The Scan Window is entered once the user selected the Scan gadget of
the Input Window. In normal operation, the Scan window will have two gadgets,
two menu items, and four informational displays. The "Stop" gadget will cause
the scan to stop where it is. This is only available for Recover-by-Copy
operations, since Fix-In-Place operations need to scan the entire disk. The
other gadget is the "Pause" gadget, which will freeze the scan where it is
until told to go on.
The two menu items are "Project/Help..." and "Project/Quit". The
former will display some information about the Scan Window, while the latter
will cause the DiskSalv program to quit, just like the Close gadget will.
During Fix-In-Place operations, the Quit function will take some time if
invoked during some of the latter fixing phases, since DiskSalv doesn't want to
leave the disk in a questionable state.
The "Current Operation" display indicates what DiskSalv is actually
doing at any given time during the scan. To the right of this is the "Device
Scan" box, which keeps track of scanning statistics, like the current block and
number of Files or Errors encountered. Below this is the "fuel guage", which
is always used to indicate the progress of the current phase. Below that is
the "Scanning Results" display, which indicates the type and name of each
object found, as well as other statistics (this is basically what gets written
out to the log file, if there is a log file). On a large display, this is
eleven lines long, on a small display its five lines long. The QUICKSCAN
option eliminates this part of the display altogether.
DiskSalv Version 2 Release 11.25 Page 13
4
.
THE OUTPUT WINDOW
All Recover-by-Copy operations and Fix-In-Place operations with
corrupt files end the scanning process and open the Output Window. This is
where objects and the output path are selected for a Restore (eg,
Recover-by-Copy) operation. This window's GUI consists of twelve gadgets and
ten menu items. The gadgets are as follows:
Salvage File List
(
etc
)
The scrolling file list, labelled somewhat differently for each
function, is where files are selected for restoration to a new
volume. Clicking on a file or link alternately tags or clears that
object, and makes it the "current" object (displayed in the text
gadget below the list gadget). Clicking on a directory once makes it
the current object, but does not tag it. Clicking again on that same
directory causes this "browser" to "move" to that directory. There
are keyboard shorts for this too. The standard gadget short (shown
in the list title), will scroll the selected item in the list, but
won't actually do anything with it. The space bar will toggle
selection of file objects, or enter directories.
Output Path
This specifies two gadgets, a disk icon gadget and a string gadget.
Clicking on the disk icon brings up a file requester, while clicking
on the string requester lets the user enter a path by hand. This
path is the place to put any recovered files. It can be a device,
directory, or possibly a "stream", depending on the setting of the
"Archive Stream" option. If a non-existant directory is specified,
it is created.
Salvage
This gadget begins the file restoration. It won't be selectable
until at least something is tagged in the Salvage List and proper
output device parameters have been entered.
File List Action
The remaining gadgets are part of the File List Action group. These
control tags on objects, browser navigation, and other aspects of the
file list. Note that only tagged files are operated on by "Forget"
or "Salvage".
Parent
This gadget brings the file browser up by one directory level.
Root
This gadget brings the file brower up to the top directory level.
Forget
This gadget removes any tagged objects from the browser list. It has
no effect on the object as it exists on-disk.
Info
...
Statistics on the "current" object are displayed in a requester when
this is selected.
Select Directory
This will recursively tag every object in the hierarchy of a
directory. If the current object is a directory, it's used,
Page 14 DiskSalv Version 2 Release 11.25
otherwise the present (displayed) directory is used.
Select Files
Like "Select Directory", but tags only files.
Clear Directory
Like "Select Directory", but recursively untags objects.
Clear Files
Like "Clear Directory", but untags only files.
Most of the menu items are designed to support the settings of
different restore-time parameters. The menu items are:
Project
/
Help
...
This option pops up with a brief description of the Output window.
Project
/
New Device
...
This option resets DiskSalv and starts over back at the Input
Window.
Project
/
Quit
This option, like the close gadget, causes DiskSalv to cleanly exit.
Settings
/
Size Check
This toggles automatic size checking of the output volume. Normally,
DiskSalv watches the size of the output volume to have an idea ahead
of time that a volume will fill up. Some devices, such as RAM:, are
dynamically sized and always indicate full when asked, so this
parameter is mainly intended for such devices (DiskSalv actually
invokes this automatically for RAM:, but it would have to be
specified manually for other such devices).
Settings
/
Warning Notes
This toggles whether or not DiskSalv will attach a warning or error
message, as a FileNote, to any file it restores via a Recover-by-Copy
operation that it considers suspect or bad.
Settings
/
Notes Restored
This toggles restoration the original FileNote to any restored
object. Warning notes will override original notes). This option
will inhibit such an action.
Settings
/
Protection Restored
This toggles restoration of the original protection codes on any
object. This option will inhibit such an action.
Settings
/
Date Restored
This toggles restoration of the original AmigaDOS date to all output
objects.
Settings
/
Archive Stream
This determines which I/O formation is used for the output device.
By default, the OUTPUT device is a directory, and DiskSalv
regenerates the specified directory tree as found on the input disk.
When Archive Stream mode is set, DiskSalv writes out everything in a
structured output stream. This stream is turned back to a directory
tree by using the Project/Restore option on the Input Window. Since
DiskSalv Version 2 Release 11.25 Page 15
this formatted stream makes all disk objects appear as a single file,
it can be piped though compression tools and processed through other
interesting programs as desirable.
Settings
/
Save Settings
When selected, this saves the state of the toggle options other than
"Archive Stream" out to the DiskSalv.info file.
5
.
THE RECOVERY WINDOW
The Recovery Window looks exactly like the Scan window, mainly
because it is the Scan Window just doing something else. This window displays
each file as it's restored to the output device. Along the way, if the output
device fails or gets full, DiskSalv will prompt the user to skip the file,
change the media, or change devices. When a device change is requested, the
Output window is called up again to secure a new device input the normal way.
At that point, only files left yet-to-be restored will be out on disk.
6
.
LICENSING AND DISTRIBUTION
This program is distributed as ShareWare. It may be freely
redistributed, but no charges other than reasonable copying and handling fees
may be collected. The suggested basic registration fee is US$10, which gets
you an entry in my database of users.
The semi-commercial version is available for US$40 (release expected
in August of 1993), and it comes with a professional quality manual, AmigaGuide
manual, and the latest version of DiskSalv on disk as well, along with an
update when ready. At present, the commercial and shareware versions of the
program are the same, though at any given point, the commercial version will of
course be the very latest release available.
Finally, if you want an update service, for an additional US$10
(US$15 foreign) you get a year's worth of updates, at least two. If no bug
fixes are done during that time, you'll get an enhanced version when it is
released. This is mainly to keep those concerned about any bugs fed with the
latest version automatically.
The place to send any and all inquirys, bug reports, etc. is:
Dave Haynie
284 Memorial Avenue
Gibbstown, NJ 08027
USA
You can also contact me electronically:
UUCP: daveh@cbmvax.commodore.com
Usenet: {uunet,rutgers}!cbmvax!daveh
BIX: hazy
Portal: hazy
FAX: +1 (609)224-0442
If you're not from the USA, you can pay in your local currency if you
send a cash equivalent. The extra expense of you getting a draft for US
currency, then me paying the bank for collection, seems to leave the banks
getting about 1/2 the money for a US$10 registration fee. I'd just as soon
convert the cash myself once I collect a reasonable amount. Of course, if your
Page 16 DiskSalv Version 2 Release 11.25
country's laws prohibit sending cash out of the country or something similar,
you may not want to do this.
Also of interest to foreign Amiga users is language support.
DiskSalv fully supports the AmigaDOS 2.1 localization library mechanism. Some
locale catalogs are included with this initial release. Additional locale
support should be available at a later date. Translations of the commercial
manual may be possible, but none are currently being developed.
If you're a commercial interest, you can contact me about
non-exclusive bundling deals if you're interested. Dealers or other groups
should contact me about volume discounts on the deluxe distribution.