Diamond Edge Demo Version Extendible Help System File: FILE.HLP Topics covered: ù User Preferences ù Active Drive ù Basic Displays ù User Mode ù Warn Mode ù Medic Pause Delay ù Preferences User selectable preferences are available through the Preferences option under the File menu. These preferences are automatically set during the installation process and you may modify them at any time. The selectable options include the default paths that you want Diamond Disk Information and Disk Validation files to be saved. ù Note that ALL of the currently selected menu options and switches are saved in the configuration file. To save current configuration select Save Preferences, to use but not save the current preferences select Use Preferences, to exit without any modification to the current preferences select Cancel. ù User Mode The User Mode defines the level of experience with disk functions that YOU say you have. There are two levels: Novice and Expert. Although, all program functions are available to all users, additional warnings and explanations of the effects of the selected action will be given to users that select Novice user mode. If you select Expert user mode it is assumed that you know what you are doing when you select an action. Be certain that you do. ù Warn Mode Warn mode effects the amount of warning that you will receive before certain types of actions. There are two types of warning modes: Only before potential loss of data or Never. Note that even if you select Expert mode and Never warn you will still receive warnings before certain types of actions like repartitioning your hard disk or zeroing Drive C. ù Until you are very comfortable with the operation of Diamond Edge, it is strongly suggested that you select Novice user mode and Always warn options. ù Disk Medic Pause with No Errors There are many situations where automatic continuation after a Disk Medic pass, like when no errors are found, is convenient. If no errors are found, the value that you enter is the number of seconds that the program will pause to display the Disk Medic Report before continuing on to the next task. If you leave it blank, then the program will wait for user input before continuing. The program will always wait for user input if any disk errors are found during a Disk Medic pass. ù The Active Drive There is one operating principal that applies to nearly every program function: the Active Drive. The basic window function block contains a set of buttons showing the available drive partitions in your disk systems and a set of basic program functions. The drive that is selected is called the Active Drive. ALL PROGRAM FUNCTIONS ARE PERFORMED ON THE ACTIVE DRIVE. The only exception to this rule are the SCSI level operations and Disk to Disk copy operations. To change the Active Drive click on the drive button or press the letter of the drive that you want to become the Active Drive. ù The Disk Information Display When you select Disk Info from the basic window function block, critical disk information is displayed for the Active Drive. For a complete description of all of the items contained in the Disk Information Display, please refer to Section 8.3 in your manual: Inside the Disk Partition. ù The Fragmentation Map Display Selecting Frag Map from the basic window function block will create a visual display of the fragmentation level of the active drive and provide additional active drive statistics. Fragmentation occurs when parts of files become spread across your disk in different locations. This is a normal by product of the everyday process of creating files, deleting files, and then adding more files. The disk fragmentation map is generated in the order thatan actual directory search would take. What you are witnessing is not only the level of file fragmentation on your disks, but also the level of directory fragmentation. If you have a heavily fragmented disk, you might notice that the map seems to fill in at seemingly random locations. This is demonstrating how hard your disk has to work to perform a simple directory search. The Disk Fragmentation Map displays a number of useful summary statistics and graphs that allow you to assess the fragmentation level of your disk. For the purposes of the statistics, 1 fragment is defined as an interruption in consecutive location of disk clusters in a file. So a file that is broken into two pieces on the disk has 1 fragment, a file that is broken into three separate pieces on the disk has 2 fragments, etc. A file that has all of it's clusters consecutive on the disk has no fragments. The summary statistics shown include the total number of folders on your disk, the total number of files on your disk, and the total number of fragmented files on your disk. Additional information is provided for the fragmented files showing the average number of fragments contained in each fragmented file and the average number of fragments contained in 100K bytes of fragmented files. The graph in the Disk Fragmentation Map display is a relative frequency histogram showing the distribution of the sizes of files on your disk and the average fragmentation level for each size class. Each bar represents a bin of files sizes and the height of the bar represents the percentage of the total number of files on your disk that are in that size category. The shading on each bar represents the average number of fragments for files contained within that size category. This information is useful in determining the level and severity of disk fragmentation. It provides you with an idea of how much fragmentation you have, where the fragmentation is, and what type of files does it effect. This information can be used to determine whether it is necessary to optimize the disk partition to regain hard disk performance. ù The All Drive Information Display Selecting All Info gives you a visual description of all of your hard drives capacities and the current usage. The disk statistics of total disk capacity, bytes used, bytes free, and percentage bytes free are given for each drive individually. A total for all of your drives is displayed at the bottom of the All Drives Information display. ù You can print out all of the information from any of the three basic window views by selecting Print from the basic window function block. It is a good idea to have a printout of all your critical disk information.