This document contains crucial information on volume sharing with Bernie ][ The Rescue. Please read this text carefully in order to avoid loss of data or corruption. F.E.Systems has extensively tested this software, but due to deficiencies in software components not under F.E.Systems' control things might not work as expected. Although the documentation below will provide you with the information you need to know how to prevent unpleasant surprises, we feel there's a need for a disclaimer:
"Bernie ][ The Rescue" is distributed as is without warranties as to performance or fitness to a particular purpose. Neither F.E.Systems Horstmann & Gudat nor Kagi Shareware are liable or responsible for loss or damage caused directly or indirectly by this product. You, the user, assume the entire cost of all necessary repair, servicing or correction and any incidental or consequential damages.
Welcome to Volume Sharing!
Volume Sharing (code-named "Cold Fusion") was new to Bernie ß3 and basically means that you can mount any volume seen in the Finder in the Apple II environment. This applies to ProDOS volumes (mounted with PC Exchange or other third party tools), HFS volumes (MacOS), MS-DOS volumes and CD-ROMs.
Volume sharing frees you from moving your data - for example from your former Apple II hard disk - to a virtual volume via 3.5" disks. You can access all data on a volume (some file system specific restrictions may apply) - easily and at pretty high transfer rates.
To share a volume, push the "Mount" button in the "Disks" window or choose "Mount Disk.." from the File menu. The window that will pop up allows you to mount disk images (as in previous versions) and volumes.
Tip: you can also drag & drop volumes on the Bernie icon. (If you have been using earlier betas, you need to rebuild the desktop file in order to make this happen. Hold down option+command when all extensions have been loaded and before the Finder appears.)
Step 1: Choose a Volume
Below the directory listing is a large button that is dimmed most of the time. This button makes the selected volume available in the Apple II environment:
• push the Desktop button to see a list of currently available volumes
• highlight the volume you'd like to mount in Bernie
• The "Mount" button will now show the name of the selected volume
Note: you can't mount the startup volume. If you highlight the startup volume, Bernie will dim the "Mount button.
In read-only mode, a volume is always locked. Clicking the "Lock" button in the "Disks" window has no effect.
Step 2: Choose Read/Write Or Read-Only
Below the Mount button is a check-box titled "read-only". It is checked by default. This check-box allows you to mount a volume in two completely different ways - it's not just that write access is enabled or not, instead there are some major differences in how the volume is mirrored in the Apple II environment.
If read-only is checked, the volume appears in the Apple II environment as a write protected Smartport device. Simultanously, Bernie places a lock on the volume in the MacOS layer, thus preventing any modifications. (You will see a "lock" in the Finder windows.) Consequently, you have read-only access from both MacOS and the Apple II. When you unmount the volume in Bernie, the lock will be removed and you can read and write again from within MacOS. (Note: the Finder does not automatically update the Finder windows. Therefore, you might still see the disk lock even though it has been removed. Please close the Finder windows and reopen them to see the changes.)
If read-only is cleared, the volume will be removed from the desktop and Bernie is taking over control. Although this seems to be much cooler than read-only access, there are some important pitfalls you should be aware of:
• Some FWB HDT drivers are incompatible with volume sharing. This is a deficiency of the HDT driver. We have found that
- all HDT drivers do not work on removable media with the "physical eject on unmount" flag checked. (This flag is in the HDT driver configuration. Please consult the manual for more details.) There are two workarounds: either disable "physical eject on unmount" or use a different driver.
- version prior to v2.0 do not implement certain driver calls properly. You will not be able to use volume sharing with HDT versions predating 2.0 (whether the media is removable or not).
• Be very careful with HFS volumes. Even though GS/OS can access HFS volumes, the HFS driver in GS/OS is known to be very buggy and can corrupt a volume effortlessly. There are patches that fix some of the most annoying quirks, but you still risk loss of data. We recommend you to use HFS volumes only with dependable media.
• While the volume is controlled by Bernie in write-enabled mode, MacOS does not claim the volume is in use. Consequently, you could eject removable media easily and nobody would complain. DO NOT EJECT THE MEDIA. Instead, follow these steps:
- shut down GS/OS or ProDOS 16 so all open buffers/caches are written to disk
- unmount the volume in Bernie (push the "Eject" button)
- the volume will reappear in the Finder. Drag it to the Trash.
As you can see, sharing a volume in read/write mode does not come for free. We have implemented the read-only mode for those who do not want to risk loss or corruption of data caused by components that are not necessarily under Bernie's control. Better safe than sorry!
