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Magnum One (Mid-American Digital) (Disc Manufacturing).iso
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filedv13.arc
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FILEDISK.DOC
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1987-10-01
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4KB
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74 lines
FileDisk and FileForm V1.3
==========================
The purpose of this software is to access part of your hard disk
with a clustersize of 512 bytes under DOS 2.11 and 3.x.
FileDisk.Sys is a block device driver designed to handle up to 10
units. The physical basis of each unit is a run of connected
sectors on a hard disk. This area is hidden from the DOS's usual
block driver by allocating it to a read-only hidden system file
(i.e. a "FileDisk"). When the system is booted, FileDisk.Sys will
search the root directories of the DOS-partitions of all hard
disks for FileDisks. The directory entry will tell the FileDisk's
position (start and size). Only this restricted area is accessed
by FileDisk.Sys. Thus it does not interfere with the standard
driver.
FileForm.Com maintains these FileDisks. It is written in TURBO-
PASCAL and uses only the standard "Write" procedure. However, the
F(ile)A(llocation)T(able) must be read with the DOS-Interrupt
25h. First, all FileDisks are checked for continuous use of
clusters. Then the FAT is searched for runs of free clusters,
these runs being candidate locations for new FileDisks, which can
be created afterwards (if possible).
Because FileDisks do not change their size or position except
when manipulated by purpose (e.g. by running a disk optimizer),
the action of FileDisk.Sys will be completely transparent to DOS.
FileDisk may be erased with FileForm (among other things, the
write protection needs to be removed). FileForm will cause the
system to boot immediately after erasing the FileDisk to prevent
FileDisk.Sys from accessing the no longer protected clusters that
formed the erased FileDisk. This time the newly invoked
FileDisk.Sys will not find the erased FileDisk, thus it will no
longer access this area of the hard disk. Whenever you run a
program that might change the position of FileDisks, it is
ABSOLUTELY necessary to boot and check the integrity of all
FileDisks with FileForm. A compatibility with other software
like VFeature cannot be guaranteed.
The smallest FileDisks span 1 megabyte. Under DOS 2.xx they are
limited to 2 megabytes due to the inability of DOS 2.xx to handle
more than 4085 clusters. Under DOS 3.x their size has been
limited to 8 MB due to the inability of CHKDSK to handle more
than 16K clusters. We point out that with DOS 3.2's utility JOIN
you can treat drives as subdirectories of other drives.
To install FileDisks you need to have continuous runs of free
clusters. This can be achieved by running a disk optimizer or by
a BACKUP-FORMAT-RESTORE procedure. Only hard disks up to 32 MB
are supported.
Versions 1.3 of FileDisk.Sys and FileForm.Com are Public Domain
Software. This means you are encouraged to distribute programs
and documentation in complete and unmodified form as long as no
profit is made. "Complete" means that all 8 files (ReadMe.Doc,
LiesMich.Dok, FileDisk.Sys, FileForm.Com, Recipe.Doc, Rezept.Dok,
FileDisk.Doc and FileDisk.Dok or any library FileDisk.Arc
containing these 8 unmodified files) should be copied. Posting
of FileDisk.Arc in BBSs for downloading is welcome.
These programs and documentation are subject to the usual
disclaimer that they are provided "as is" without warranty of any
kind, either expressed or implied, including but not limited to
the implied warranties of merchantability and fitness for a
particular purpose. The entire risk as to quality and
performance of the programs is with you. Should the programs
prove defective, you assume the entire cost of all necessary
servicing, repair or correction. In no event can the author and
holder of the copyright for this software, DiGiNeTiX Düsseldorf,
be held responsible for any claim of a user or of any other
party. DiGiNeTiX has no means to secure the intactness of
distributed files.