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1989-07-26
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ReOrg V1.1
Shareware disk optimizer
English documentation
(C) 1992 Holger Kruse
Contents
--------
1. Conditions, Disclaimer
2. What is ReOrg ? - Short introduction
3. Hardware, Software needed; Installation
4. Usage
5. Technical details
6. Option file format
7. Program version, update info
8. Acknowledgements
1. Conditions, Disclaimer
-------------------------
ReOrg is shareware. The program may be freely distributed
and copied, as long as the following conditions are
fulfilled:
- The sales price must not be higher than the cost of
an (empty) disk plus a nominal copying fee plus
costs for shipping. The total price must not be higher
than 6 US$ or 10 DM.
- All parts of the program and the documentation must
be complete. The distribution of single parts is not
allowed.
- ReOrg or parts of it must not be sold in combination with
or as part of commercial software.
- Program and documentation must not be changed in any way.
Exception (this means: acceptable is:) the use of
archivers such as LHArc and packers like "Imploder" or
"Powerpacker", as long as it is possible to retrieve
the original program/data.
I want to ask everybody, who uses ReOrg (except for one
or two test runs), to send the amount of
10 US$ or 15 DM
to the following address:
Holger Kruse
Ulzburger Str. 387-389
2000 Norderstedt
Germany
Please send only cash or eurocheques, do not send
stamps, american bank checks, disks etc.
Thank you very much in advance !
I will try and inform everybody, who as registered with
me as described above, when a new version of ReOrg
becomes available.
Until the start of july '92, you can also reach me via
electronic mail. My (Internet-)address is:
hkr@mcshh.hanse.de
I explicitly do not guarantee for the correct functioning
of ReOrg. When you optimize disks, you always run the
risk of a data loss, of a change of your data or of
the destruction of your data. I explicitly reject any
responsibility for these or any other consequences from
the use of ReOrg whatsoever. This includes, but is not
limited to, secondary consequences, personal injuries or
other kinds on side effects.
I hereby explicitly warn each user:
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
!!! Optimizing a disk is always risky. !!!
!!! I strongly recommend each user to backup !!!
!!! or copy his disk completely before !!!
!!! optimizing it. It is the user's !!!
!!! responsibility to check his data for !!!
!!! completeness and correctness after !!!
!!! optimizing it. I explicitly reject any !!!
!!! responsibility for damages or changes. !!!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
2. What is ReOrg ? - Short introduction
---------------------------------------
ReOrg is a disk optimizer, i.e. a program that
improves the physical data layout on a floppy
disk or harddisk, in order to speed up file
and directory accesses.
ReOrg removes some problems that are caused
by AmigaDOS:
- file fragmentation:
When new files are created, it is possible that
AmigaDOS can not store the file contents in one
single consecutive block, because there is no
such block available on the disk. In this case
AmigaDOS sometimes scatters the file contents over
the whole disk.
ReOrg removes this problem by placing the contents
of each file in a single consecutive block.
- directory fragmentation:
In contrary to other operating systems (e.g. MSDOS),
AmigaDOS does not store directory data in a single
consecutive block. This leads to weak performance
for directory listings.
ReOrg tries to store directory data as closely together
as possible. This considerably speeds up commands like
"dir" and "lists" and the directory display within
file requesters.
- differences in disk format:
When you use disks under Kick1.2/1.3, which have been
formatted under Kick2.04, directory accesses are often
even much slower than usual. The reason for this is, that
placement of "FileList"-blocks has been changed from
Kick1.2/1.3 to Kick2.04.
ReOrg has an option where to place "FileList"-blocks.
This means you can optimize Kick2.04-disks for use
with Kick1.2/1.3.
ReOrg can be used with the following disk formats:
- all currently available AmigaDOS filesystems, including
- OldFileSystem (OFS: "DOS\0")
- FastFileSystem (FFS: "DOS\1")
- new (Kick2.0)-FileSystem (includes OFS and FFS)
- International FileSystem (has been in ROM at least
since Kick2.04 and will (possibly ?) be supported
from the Shell in WB2.1: "DOS\2", "DOS\3")
- All floppy disk and hard disk sizes are supported.
However, to optimizer large hard disk partitions,
you need a lot of memory. There is also another
ReOrg Version (V2.1) available, that needs considerably
less memory, but that can only be used under
Kick2.04.
- ReOrg supports "hard links" and "soft links";
however, "soft links" are not wholely supported by
Commodore yet. Therefore, ReOrg only supports the
(possibly preliminary) "soft link" implementation
of Kick2.04. I can not guarantee that this version
of ReOrg correctly handles "soft link" implementation
of future AmigaDOS versions.
- CAUTION: DYNAMIC Ram disks, like "VD0:" ((C) ASDG)
must NOT be optimized by ReOrg. Optimizing such disks
may lead to data loss !
- Of course, ReOrg can not optimize "RAM:". Anyway,
this would not make much sense.
- You CAN use ReOrg to optimize your resident,
non-dynamical RAM-Disk "RAD:" ((C) by Commodore).
- ReOrg has a one-disk-mode (optimize a single disk)
and a two-disk-mode (optimize one disk while copying
it to a different disk)
In comparison to other disk optimizers available on
the Amiga market, ReOrg is quite fast.
Optimizing a 880 kB disk on a standard 68000 Amiga
with 1 MB of free memory usually takes about 1:30
to 1:40 minutes. On a 68030 Amiga it takes only
1:20 to 1:30 minutes.
Optimizing a 40 MB harddisk on a 68000 Amiga usually
takes around 10 to 15 minutes, but this time depends very
much on the amount of free memory, type of controller
type of processor and the degree of disk fragmentation.
If you use a 68030 Amiga and have enough memory
available, the optimization time can be reduced to
about 4 minutes.
3. Hardware, software needed; Installation
------------------------------------------
To use ReOrg, you need an Amiga, Kickstart 1.2
or above and enough memory.
If you have Kickstart 2.04, you should use ReOrg Version V2.1,
because ReOrg V1.1 does not correctly support some of the
new features of Kickstart 2.04 (e.g. High-Density disk drives).
ReOrg V1.1 is only meant to be a temporary solution for
those who do not have Kickstart 2.04 yet.
The amount of memory you need is approximately:
220 kB (needed for the program itself)
+ 17 kB for each MB of disk size
+ 5 * tracksize of your disk
+ 150 kB which are usually not used by ReOrg, but must be
left to avoid low-memory situations. (For large
partition sizes and much memory available, this
number may become higher)
Examples:
1) 880 kB floppy disk: 40 MB harddisk:
(11 sectors/track) (32 sectors/track)
220 kB 220 kB
+ 15 kB (17 kB * 880/1024) + 680 kB (17 kB * 40)
+ 28 kB (11/2 kB * 5) + 80 kB (32/2 kb * 5)
+ 150 kB + 150 kB
--------- ---------
413 kB 1130 kB
200 MB hard disk:
(32 sectors/track)
220 kB
+ 3400 kB (17 kB * 200)
+ 80 kB (32/2 kB * 5)
+ 150 kB
---------
3850 kB
These numbers are only rough approximations to give
you an idea how much memory you need.
Actually for large partition sizes, ReOrg allocates
most of your memory as a cache.
This cache is the main reason why ReOrg is so fast.
For optimum speeds, the cache should have at least
2 percent of the size of your partition.
There is no installation required for ReOrg. In addition
to the program file "ReOrg", you do not need any
libraries, fonts etc.
4. Usage
--------
ReOrg can be started only from Shell.
Valid options are:
- "-f" This option specifies if the destination
disk is to be formatted.
- "-f0" Do not format the destination disk.
For all disk writes CMD_WRITE is used.
(This only works if the destination disk
has been formatted previously;
default in one-disk-mode)
- "-f1" Only used tracks are formatted on the
first write access.
- "-f2" All tracks of the destination disk
are formatted (necessary, if the
destination disk has not been
formatted before; default in two-disk-mode)
- "-v1" / "-v0" If option "-v1" is used, ReOrg checks
if data is written correctly (verify).
This slows down the optimization.
- "-w1" / "-w0" "-w0" deactivates Workbench mode.
If Workbench mode is activated, Workbench
icons will appear faster after optimization.
- "-ofilename" You can specify the name of an option file
with this option. Option files allow the
user to specify, that certain files should
be treated by ReOrg in a different way.
The format of the option file is described
below.
- "-e" Specifies where FileExt blocks are
stored. For a detailed description:
See "5. Technical details"
- "-p" Specifies where file contents are
stored. For a detailed description:
See "5. Technical details"
- "-d1" / "-d0" Normally, ReOrg increments the disk
creation data during optimization.
This is necessary to prevent ReOrg
from mixing up the old disk with the
new, optimized disk. If option "-d0"
is used, ReOrg does not change
the disk creation date.
Caution: If you use option "-d0",
under certain circumstances your Amiga
might crash after the optimization !
- "-NOWRITE" If you use this option, ReOrg does
not write the optimized data back to
disk. This means, the optimization is
only "simulated". This is useful to
find out if ReOrg will issue error messages
during the actual optimization.
- "-m" You can use this option to specify the
amount memory that ReOrg should NOT use
as cache. Default is 150000 Bytes, but
you can reduce this value to 50000.
Or you can increase the value as high
as you wish, if you want to spare some
of your memory for other programs.
Values smaller than 50000 are not allowed,
because otherwise there might not be
enough memory left when an error occurs.
- "-s" ReOrg stores large files in a seperate
area on your disk to speed up the access
to directory data. However, small files are
usually stored within the directory area
to speed up the access to those files.
This does not affect the speed of
directory accesses very much.
With the "-s" option you can specify
the maximum size of files (in blocks),
that should be stored within the
directory area (default=2). Large
values slow down the directory access
("dir", "list"); small values slow down
the access to small files. When you
optimize boot disks (e.g. for games),
larger values can be useful.
- Drive You can specify one drive or two drives.
[ TO Drive ] If one drive is specified, ReOrg uses
one-disk mode. If two drives are specified,
ReOrg uses two-disk-mode.
When the optimization is started, ReOrg first prompts
the user to insert the disk(s). After that, a status
window appears and ReOrg starts reading and processing
the disk directory.
During this phase (status = "scanning disk"), ReOrg may
be interrupted at any time even in one-disk-mode by
pressing Ctrl-C.
At the end of this phase, ReOrg once again asks the
user to confirm that the disk should be optimized.
You must type "yes" to start the optimization. A
simple "return" is not enough. That way, you do not
accidentally start an unwanted optimization.
In one-disk-mode, ReOrg must not be interrupted or
canceled after this message, or your disk will be
corrupt.
During the actual optimization (status = "moving blocks")
ReOrg shows how much time the optimization will approximately
need. This display is regularly updated.
After this phase has been finished, in two-disk-mode ReOrg
may format unused tracks on the destination disk and copy
reserved sectors to the destination disk.
After that, ReOrg asks the user to remove the disk(s).
Finally, ReOrg shows some statistical information about
the disk and the optimization.
During the optimization, the status window show the
following information:
- The number of directories and files, which ReOrg has
already processed ("done") and which ReOrg has
queued for later processing ("queued").
- The current cache usage. If this value reaches
100% at any time during the optimization, this
means that more memory could speed up the
optimization.
- The current status of ReOrg. Possible states are:
- checking disk Before the actual optimization
starts, ReOrg checks if your disk
is a valid AmigaDOS disk.
- scanning disk ReOrg is reading the disk directory
and is calculating the layout of the
destination disk.
- awaiting user ReOrg is waiting for the user to
response confirm the start of the
optimization.
- moving blocks ReOrg is optimizing the disk.
- writing bitmap ReOrg is writing the new disk
bitmap.
- formatting empty If the user selected option "-f2",
tracks ReOrg formats all unused tracks on the
destination disk.
- copying reserved ReOrg is copying reserved blocks
blocks (boot blocks etc.).
- The remaining time needed for the optimization (only
during the phase "moving blocks"). This value is only
an approximation of the remaining time needed. If source
and destination devices have a very different speed,
(e.g. "RAD:" to "DF0:"), the estimation is very inaccurate.
- The percentage of disk blocks that have already been moved.
This percentage also corresponds to the percentage of time
needed for the optimization.
5. Technical details
--------------------
- Option "-e"
Files larger than 34.3 kB (OFS) or 36 kB (FFS) require
"FileExt blocks" (also called FileList blocks).
ReOrg offers three models where to place these blocks
on the output disk:
1) "-e0" : All FileExt blocks are placed immediately
behind the header block. This is the default
under Kickstart 1.2/1.3.
2) "-e2" : All FileExt blocks are placed behind the
first sequence of data blocks. This is the
default under Kickstart 2.0.
3) "-e1" : FileExt blocks are scattered among the
data blocks.
Recommended Settings:
- If you want to be able to display the directory contents
of your disk under Kickstart 1.2/1.3: BE SURE TO use the
setting "-e0". Otherwise the "dir"-command gets even slower
than it already is.
- Otherwise: usually "-e2" is best for disks that are ONLY
used under Kickstart 2.0. Sometimes, "-e1" can be useful,
if large files are read only sequentially using small
program buffers (most C-programs use very small buffers
(512 bytes)). For those programs sequential file access
gets faster, if you choose the setting "-e1".
- Exception: When you reorganize Boot disks, for which you
NEVER read the directory under Kickstart 1.2/1.3 (e.g.
Game boot disks), the setting "-e1" often gives the best
results - under Kickstart 1.2/1.3 as well as under
Kickstart 2.0.
- Another Exception: When the disk contains large files
which are accessed in relative mode (using Seek()),
you should NOT use the setting "-e1".
- Partition half (option "-p")
It is possible to store file data mainly in the
- Upper ("-p0") or
- Lower ("-p1")
partition half. Usually there is not much difference
between both settings. The decision which setting
is better usually depends on the amount of data
on the partition.
- Options "-w" and "-s"
For each file, ReOrg decides whether to store the file
contents behind the header block or in the data area.
- data stored after the header block:
- File access gets faster
- Directory access gets slower (particularly for
large files)
- data stored in data area:
- File access gets slower
- Directory access may get faster
When you use the option "-w1" (default), ReOrg stores
all "#?.info" and ".backdrop" files after the header block.
This makes Workbench icons appear faster. However,
directory access from the shell may become slower. The
option "-w0" switches this behaviour off.
The option "-s" makes ReOrg store the contents
of small files (default: up to 2 blocks size) after the
header block, to increase file access speed. This does not
slow down directory accesses considerably, but file access
to small files gets much faster.
If you only want to have fast directory access, you can set
this option to "0".
Directory accesses get fastest, if you use options
"-w0" and "-s0".
Some details about the technical process of optimization:
- The "bitmap" of the source disk is not needed by ReOrg.
Therefore it is not necessary to "validate" your disk
before optimizing it.
- Before ReOrg changes anything on your disk, it
first checks the structure of your disk. However,
this check is not complete, i.e. ReOrg does not
detect all possible structural defects (btw, even
the AmigaDOS Disk-Validator does not detect and
correct all defects !).
When ReOrg reports an error in the first phase, it
has not destroyed or changed your disk yet in any
way. But when the phase "moving blocks" starts,
ReOrg must not be interrupted any more, because
in this phase ReOrg rearranges the disk layout.
- Anyway I STRONGLY RECOMMEND to THOROUGHLY check your
disk for structural defects before optimizing it.
Otherwise ReOrg might report an error in the
"moving blocks" phase and might even destroy your
disk (although this is very unlikely).
- If ReOrg stops or is interrupted in the "moving
blocks" phase, the following things happen:
- Your disk is displayed on Workbench as "DF0:REOR"
(DF0 being the drive that contains your disk).
- When you try to access your disk, AmigaDOS reports
"Not a DOS disk".
- The contents of your disk are TOTALLY UNUSABLE AND
COMPLETELY DESTROYED.
In this situation there is only one thing you can do:
!!! Reformat your disk ("format ... quick") and !!!
!!! restore your backup. !!!
Do not trust "hints" from computer magazines telling you,
you could still repair parts of your disk. I explicitly
warn you:
!!! Do not try to repair your disk using tools like !!!
!!! "disksalv", "fixdisk", "diskdoctor" or any commercial !!!
!!! disk tools ! !!!
!!! Although you might by coincidence really restore some !!!
!!! of your files, you will most certainly "restore" a lot !!!
!!! of corrupt files, but you will not get an error !!!
!!! message from your disk recovery tool. This is !!!
!!! especially true if your disk has the FFS format. !!!
!!! "Repairing" corrupt program files may very well lead to !!!
!!! MASSIVE computer crashes in the future. So: Always !!!
!!! restore your backup when ReOrg does not complete the !!!
!!! "moving blocks" phase ! !!!
7. Option file format
---------------------
Most users will probably not needed option files.
However, option files are useful to make some "final"
optimizations, e.g. before disks are distributed.
Especially when you optimize game boot disks, a
"perfect" optimization using option files may save
you some seconds when you boot from your disk.
Option files allow you to change the settings of
the "-e" option and to specify the placement of
data blocks for individual files.
These settings override the global settings for
single files.
Example: You want to optimize a game boot disk, that
contains a lot of files. You therefore used
the global setting "-e1". (An explanation,
why this makes sense, can be found in the
section "5. Technical details").
The disadvantage of this setting is, that
relative accesses to large files become slower.
When you know, that your game often accesses a
single large file in relative mode (let's say
the name of this file is "graphics/dungeon.gfx"),
you should change the setting of "-e" to "0" for
this single file only. This kind of settings can
be specified in option files.
Option files are ordinary ASCII text files. You can use
any ASCII text editor to create and edit them (e.g. MEmacs).
Format:
1st line:
$1
(A dollar sign ("$") and the digit One ("1") in the first
two columns of the line)
all other lines:
options:file name:comment
valid options are:
I0 Data blocks of this file are not placed near
the header block (default)
I1 Data blocks of this file are placed near the
header block (file access gets faster, directory
access gets slower)
E0 The same as "-e0"
E1 The same as "-e1"
E2 The same as "-e2"
You can combine several options in a single line
(e.g.: E0I1:file name:comment)
The above example:
$1
E0:graphics/dungeon.gfx:any comment
Some more notes about the file format
- The file name must be specified relative to the root
of the disk, i.e. please do not write "/test/name.doc",
"sys:test/name.doc" or "diskname:test/name.doc", but
only "test/name.doc"
- Spaces and other special characters may occur in the
file name. You need not (and must not) use quotation
marks to surround the file name !
- Patterns (e,g, "*.txt" or "#?.txt") are not allowed !
8. Program version, update info
-------------------------------
The current program version (shareware) is V1.1
If somebody still has ReOrg versions V0.9, V0.99 or
V1.0, please DELETE them !
ReOrg versions with those version numbers are beta-test
versions. Some of them still contain severe bugs.
Do not distribute those old versions !
Besides ReOrg V1.1, there is another current ReOrg version,
that only runs under Kickstart 2.04. The current
version number of this ReOrg version is V2.1.
If you have ReOrg version V2.0, please DELETE it. It is a
beta-test version, too.
I will probably not improve ReOrg V1.1 any more, but
only the Kick2.04-compatible ReOrg V2.1
Registered users will get a notification when new versions
of ReOrg V2.1 get available, that contain significant
changes or enhancements.
Besides ReOrg V2.1 contains some improvements that
have not been implemented in ReOrg V1.1. One of them
is: ReOrg V2.1 needs much less memory to optimize large
hard disk partitions than ReOrg V1.1.
In order to be able to improve / correct ReOrg, I would like
to ask every user to do the following things:
- send me the registration fee
- send me bug reports, if you find any bugs
- give me hints how to improve ReOrg
Thank you very much in advance !
My personal future plans for ReOrg V2.1, if I have time for them:
- Implement an option to convert disks between the
"ordinary" disk formats to/from the International
FileSystem format
(i.e. DOS\0 <--> DOS\2, and DOS\1 <--> DOS\3)
- Support for "locale.library" to adapt ReOrg to
different languages
I will be thankful for other ideas.
9. Acknowledgements
-------------------
Thank you to all beta-testers of ReOrg !
These are:
Thomas Esser, Oliver Kasper, Carsten Lechte, Holger Lubitz,
Michael Rohrdrommel, Kai Siering, Christian Soltenborn,
Christian Wolf and Michael Zielinski.
Thank you to Christian Wolf for distributing
ReOrg via FTP !
... last but not least many thanks in advance to all
ReOrg users who send me the registration fee !
Holger Kruse
