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OS/2 Shareware BBS: 14 Text
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DEFRAG.ZIP
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DEFRAG.TXT
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1992-07-13
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How to Defrag FAT Volumes After Installing OS/2 (Any Version)
Address Comments/Suggestions to:
Mercer Harz, 70431,150
All standard disclaimers apply; this procedure works for me, and
others, and I've never had to resort to use of the backup I make.
However, disaster can strike at any time; be prepared. Although I have
followed these directions (more or less) on a regular basis when
defragging my systems, and have not experienced any problems as a result,
(under OS/2 v1.2, 1.3, and 2.0, and DOS 4.01 and 5.0), you should still
be careful. In particular, attempt to run the defragger with as few
device drivers loaded as possible (preferably none); no programs that
terminate and stay resident (TSRs); no disk caching software; no extended
memory managers; etc. The safest way to run a defragger is to make
sure that only DOS and the defragging software are executing.
The instructions below assume that you are using OS/2 2.0 and DOS 5.0.
If you are using different versions of these operating systems, the
procedures in general are still valid, but the particular details
concerning file locations, file names and capabilities of the ATTRIB
program may vary.
Currently, there is no support under OS/2 for Stacker or similar
on-the-fly disk compression systems. This procedure has not been tested
on STACKed volumes, for the very good reason that it won't work
properly on them. When an OS/2 version of STACKER is available, and I
get it <g>, I'll update this procedure as required.
*---------------------------------------------------------------------*
Requirements:
1. The target volume(s) must be formatted for the FAT file system.
2. You must have a bootable DOS diskette (preferably 4.01 or later).
The CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT for this boot diskette should
be as simple as possible; don't load any TSRs, cache programs,
memory managers, or device drivers (beyond those required for
hard disk access, if any).
3. You must have a disk defragger (optimizer) that preserves the
entire directory entry for a file. There are reserved bytes in
each entry of a FAT-formatted directory; these are used to store
pointers to extended attributes. A few older programs did not
preserve the contents of these reserved bytes when manipulating
directory entries. I've used SoftLogic Systems' "Disk Optimzer"
(v4.01 and later) and Norton's "Speedisk" (v4.5 and later)
successfully. Other products are likely to work successfully as
well. You can run the defragger from the disk being defragged, from
another FAT-format hard disk volume, or, if you copy the defragger
onto the bootable DOS diskette, from the diskette.
4. You must have the OS/2 2.0 Installation diskette, as well as
diskettes 1 and 2.
5. You must have a DOS utility, such as ATTRIB, or a disk editor, such
as Norton's DiskEdit, with which you can change the file attributes
of OS/2 system files that are to be defragged. This utility must be
available on the bootable DOS diskette, or in a directory on a hard
disk volume. Alternatively, you could perform the ATTRIB steps
described below while booted from the OS/2 installation diskettes,
by making explicit references to x:\OS2\ATTRIB.EXE, where x: is
the hard disk volume on which OS/2 2.0 is installed. If you need
directions for the use of the ATTRIB command, refer to the online
OS/2 Command Reference, in the Information folder. Its syntax
description is valid for both DOS (5.0) and OS/2.
*---------------------------------------------------------------------*
Procedure:
0. Take a full backup of all volumes that you are going to defrag.
If you have an OS/2 backup program, all the better; it will handle
backing up and restoring extended attributes automatically. If you
have a DOS backup program, look in the libraries in IBMOS2 for
one of the utilities that allow you to backup and restore the
OS/2 extended attributes using DOS backup software. EABK10.ZIP
and EAPREP.CMD are two that I know of (I wrote the latter). Also,
there is another program that saves the WorkPlace Shell configuration;
it is called WPSBK2.ZIP; highly recommended, regardless of the type
of backup software you have.
1. Shutdown OS/2 (click the right mouse button on the desktop, then
select "Shut down" from the popup menu).
2. When you see the message informing you that you can either press
CTRL+ALT+DEL or turn off the machine, insert the OS/2 2.0
Installation Diskette in drive A:, then press CTRL+ALT+DEL.
3. When prompted, remove the installation diskette, insert OS/2 2.0
diskette 1 and press ENTER. After the OS/2 logo is displayed, you
will be asked to press ESC to cancel or ENTER to continue with
installation.
4. Press ESC. You will then be dropped out of installation, to an
OS/2 command-line prompt, logged onto drive A:.
5. Insert OS/2 2.0 diskette 2, which contains CHKDSK.
6. Run CHKDSK /F against every volume that you are going to defrag,
while still logged onto the A: drive.
Example: If you are going to defrag volumes C:, E: and F:, issue
the following commands, from the [A:]> prompt:
CHKDSK C: /F
CHKDSK E: /F
CHKDSK F: /F
This is necessary, so that there are no errors in the Extended
Attribute (EA) pointers prior to the defrag, and to reclaim space
from EAs that have been deleted.
The reason you boot from floppy to do this is that CHKDSK cannot
fix disk errors on the disk that it is booted from, because of
system integrity issues.
7. At this point, the faint at heart may want to re-boot OS/2 2.0
from the hard disk, just to make sure that everything still works,
particularly if errors were found during the CHKDSK execution(s).
If OS/2 won't reboot from the hard disk, DO NOT proceed to the
next step; instead, seek assistance, and/or restore your hard
disk from the backup. If you successfully reboot OS/2 from the hard
disk at this point, shutdown again as described in step 1 before
continuing with the next step.
8. Insert the DOS boot diskette into drive A: and press CTRL+ALT+DEL
to boot into DOS; do not, under any circumstances, try to run a
disk defragger/optimizer in a DOS session, either emulated or
specific, under OS/2 (or Windows, for that matter). With the
current state of the art, you should always run a disk defragger
only under native DOS.
9. If you are defragging the volume that contains SWAPPER.DAT, delete
the SWAPPER.DAT file. (The drive and directory containing
SWAPPER.DAT is specified by the SWAPPATH entry in the OS/2
CONFIG.SYS.) Deleting SWAPPER.DAT prior to defragging has two
benefits: it shortens the defrag time, and, since SWAPPER.DAT is
deleted and reallocated at every bootup, after defragging, the page
dataset initial allocation will be contiguous and located at the
"end" of the drive.
10. If you are defragging a volume containing a Windows 3.0 or 3.1
SWAPFILE (386SPART.PAR), leave this file alone. Do not unhide
or delete it. Windows allocates this file contiguously; it
never needs to be defragged. Of course, there is an exception:
should you need to enlarge the Windows SWAPFILE, use the Windows
SWAPFILE program (Win3.0) or the 386 Enhanced Mode Control Panel
applet (Win3.1) to delete the current 386SPART.PAR prior to
running the defrag procedure, then, after defragging, use the
Windows tool to allocate the larger Windows SWAPFILE.
11. Invoke ATTRIB (or use a disk editor) to clear the HIDDEN, SYSTEM
and/or READ-ONLY attributes of the following files:
On the OS/2 2.0 boot volume (if formatted for FAT):
File Name Normal Attrs
----------------------------- ------------
x:\EA DATA. SF Hid R-O Sys
x:\WP ROOT. SF Hid Sys
x:\OS2LDR Hid R-O Sys
x:\OS2KRNL Hid R-O Sys
x:\OS2BOOT Hid R-O Sys
* x:\IBMLVL.INI R-O
x:\OS2\BITMAP\AAAAA.EXE Hid Sys
x:\OS2\BITMAP\AAAAA.MET Hid Sys
** x:\OS2\SYSTEM\BOOT.OS2 Hid R-O
(plus any other hidden files you want to defrag)
* Present only if you have installed Extended Services v1.0
** Present only if you have installed for DualBoot
On all other FAT volumes:
x:\EA DATA. SF Hid R-O Sys
x:\WP ROOT. SF Hid Sys
(plus any other hidden files you want to defrag)
Depending on other products you may have installed, there may be
other hidden files that you may want to unhide, so that they can
be defragged, relocated, or both.
12. To manipulate the files that have spaces embedded in their names,
use DOS wildcards, such as the following example, which will clear
all the file attributes for these files:
ATTRIB -H -R -S x:\*.?SF
This example resets the file attributes for the WP ROOT. SF file:
ATTRIB +H +S x:\WP?ROOT.?SF
13. If you are set up for DualBoot, and are defragging the boot disk,
DO NOT unhide the DOS system files. Some versions of DOS are not
sensitive to the location of the system files, but others require
the system files to be located directly behind the root directory,
where they are normally placed when DOS formats the hard disk
and makes it bootable. The files are usually named as follows:
x:\IBMBIO.COM and x:\IBMDOS.COM (for IBM PC-DOS)
x:\IO.SYS and x:\MSDOS.SYS (for MS-DOS)
If you unhide these files and the defragger relocates them, depending
on the version and/or DOS vendor, you may be unable to boot DOS from
the hard disk any longer; fixing this problem usually requires
reformatting. OS/2 booting will be unaffected, and DOS itself can
still be booted from floppy, then run off the hard drive. But it
is safer not to move these files.
OS/2 1.3 and 2.0 system files are not position-dependent. They can
be located anywhere on the boot volume; OS/2 uses directory entries
to locate these files.
14. Defrag the disk(s). When using Speedisk, I usually opt for full
optimization with file/directory reordering, not just defragging.
15. When the defragging is complete, you can (if you want to) use ATTRIB
or a disk editor to reset the file attributes you changed in step 11
back to their original values. This is not necessary, however.
16. Remove the bootable DOS diskette from drive A: and press CTRL+ALT+DEL
to reboot into OS/2 v2.0.
17. You are done.
=========================== END OF DOCUMENT ============================