Diamond Edge Demo Version Extendible Help System File: MEDIC.HLP Topics covered: ù Testing Your Disk Structure ù Disk Medic Report ù Mapping Bad Sectors on Your Disk ù Map Bad Report ù Creating Validation Files ù Validating Files ù What to do if a Validation Error is Identified ù Partitioning Your Hard Drive ù Partitioning Options ù Partitioning Actions ù Testing Your Disk Structure As with all of Diamond Edge's functions, the Disk Medic can be performed on either floppy disks or hard disk partitions. We strongly recommend that you perform run Disk Medic on ALL or your hard disk partitions at least once a week. There are several basic options, selectable through the Medic Menu, that control the action of Disk Medic. If you select Auto-Fix errors, then Diamond Edge will automatically correct all disk errors found during the Disk Medic evaluation of the active drive. It will log all errors found in a error file MEDIC_X.ERR where X is the active drive. Disk Medic Error files are saved to the directory specified for Validation files in the Preferences menu. After the Disk Medic pass, you may view the error file for information on what errors were found and fixed. If you decide not to Automatically fix errors. You may then view the error file from the Disk Medic Report to find out what errors were found and what files are effected. At this point you may either cancel without fixing the errors or instruct the Disk Medic to fix the errors. When you fix the disk errors you may select to either discard the data in the lost clusters or to save the data in the lost clusters to a file. When you select Save Lost Clusters from the Medic Menu, any lost clusters will be saved to a file LOSTCLUS.DAT when the active drive is fixed. If LOSTCLUS.DAT already exists on the active drive, then LOSTCLU0.DAT, LOSTCLUS1.DAT etc. will be created in succession. To begin the Disk Medic Pass of the active drive, select Test Disk from the Medic Menu. Remember that the drive you are testing is the Active drive. If you want to test more than one drive in a single pass select Test Multiple from the Medic Menu. The Test Multiple selection dialog will then be displayed. Select all of the drives that you want to run Disk Medic on and then select Test Drives. The Disk Medic pass then proceeds to examine the entire disk structure looking for errors. As the Disk Medic pass proceeds the location of the disk being examined is displayed in the graphic window. Areas where errors are detected are displayed in Red(cross hatch in monochrome). When the Disk Medic pass is complete the Disk Medic Report screen is displayed. ù Disk Medic Report This screen gives the total number of each type of disk error, described above, that was found on the active drive. If Auto-Fix was selected, any errors detected were corrected during the Disk Medic pass. This is indicated by the Disk Errors Have Been Fixed message in the Report Screen. If Auto-Fix was not selected and errors were detected this would be indicated by the message Disk Errors Need To Be Fixed and the appearance of a Fix Now button on the Disk Medic report screen. Any errors detected and the files they effect can be viewed from the Medic Report screen by selecting View. If Auto-Fix was not selected and you want to fix the disk errors, then selected Fix Now from the Medic Report screen. This will launch another Disk Medic pass that will fix all of the disk errors. If you do not want to fix the errors now, then select Cancel. If no errors were found or after Disk errors have been fixed, select Continue. ù Mapping Bad Sectors on Your Disk You may either Map Bad sectors on just the active drive or on Any multiple drives. The status of the Auto-Fix option in the Medic menu effects whether bad sectors are automatically marked bad or just recorded for review. When you select Map Bad Sectors from the Medic Menu the Bad Sector Mapping Preferences Dialog is displayed. There are three types of Bad Sector Mapping available: ù Read - Read Non-destructive: This method of mapping bad sectors reads each sector of the active drive twice and compares the data. If the information read is not the same then that sector is identified as bad. The data already existing on your hard drive is not effected. ù Read - Write - Read Non-destructive: This method of mapping bad sectors reads each sector of the active drive and writes it back to the hard drive. The sector is then read in again and compared to the data originally read. If the information is not the same then that sector is identified as bad. The existing data on the active drive is not effected. ù Write - Read Destructive: This method of bad sector mapping writes a random bit pattern to each sector on the active drive and then reads that sector back. If the information read back is not the same as the random bit pattern that was written then that sector is marked as bad. This is a destructive mapping and all data existing on the drive will be destroyed. The effectiveness of all methods can be increased by performing multiple bad sector mapping passes. The number of passes that you want to perform is entered in the Mapping Bad Sectors preferences dialog. The time it takes to complete the process increases with the number of passes. When you are ready to begin mapping bad sectors, select Map Bad Sectors Now. The Map Bad Sector pass then proceeds to examine the entire disk surface looking for errors. As the Map Bad pass proceeds, the location of the disk being examined is displayed in the graphic window. Areas where errors are detected are displayed in Red(cross hatch in monochrome). When the Map Bad pass is complete the Map Bad Report screen is displayed. ù Map Bad Report The logical sector numbers of each bad sector found is displayed in the Map Bad Report screen. If Auto-Fix was not selected and errors were detected this would be indicated by the message Disk Errors Need To Be Fixed and the appearance of a Fix Now button on the Map Bad Report screen. ù Creating Validation Files To create a CRC validation file from the active drive, select Create CRC File from the Medic Menu, to create a Checksum validation file for the active drive select Create Checksum File. The validation file will automatically be created and stored in the path designated in the user preferences. Validation files are named VALIDY_X.VLD where Y is the validation type (C=Checksum and R= CRC) and X is the active drive. ù Validating Files To perform a validation of the active disk select Validate Files from the Medic Menu. A standard GEM file selector will appear and ask you for the reference validation file to use. When you have selected the validation file you will be asked what action to take when the program encounters a file that is not in the reference validation file. You have the option of either automatically adding the new file to the existing validation file, skipping all new files, or being prompted for action each time a file not contained in the reference file is encountered. At anytime during the creation of a validation file or the validation of files you may pause the process to study the screen by selecting Control-S. To restart the process, select Control-Q. You may abort the entire process by selecting Control-C. ù What to do if a Validation Error is Identified A file validation error occurs when the calculated CRC/Checksum value does not match the value stored in the reference validation file. Each time this occurs you will be notified on the screen and the effected file will be recorded in a file named VALID_X.ERR where X is the active drive. If a validation error is recorded DON'T panic. After the validation is complete, view the effected files recorded in the validation error file. Even though a validation error is observed, you may not actually have a corrupted file, refer to your manual foradditional information.. ù Partitioning Your Hard Drive It is strongly suggested that the reader consult Section 8 of this manual before attempting to use this function. This will give the reader the basic understanding of disk and partition structure necessary to fully utilize this function. After selecting Partition SCSI Disk, the existing partitioning information will be read off the disk. If valid partitioning information exists on the disk it will be displayed as the basis to begin the partitioning session. There are three basic editing modes: Start/End sectors, Size, and Partition Type. The current editing mode is displayed at the bottom of the partition window. To change fields within an edit mode, you may use the usual Arrow and Tab keys or point the mouse and click the left button. To change edit modes click on the object that you want to edit with the left mouse button. As you edit your partitions there are two basic rules regarding the sizes and locations of partitions: 1) Partitions must be sequential i.e. the start of partition #2 is after the end of partition #1 and 2) You cannot create partitions whose total size exceeds the size of your hard disk. ù Disk Partitioning Options The following partitioning aids are provided to expedite the task of partitioning your disk: ù Display Size Mode: You can select to have the disk and partition size information displayed in either Sectors or Megs. Diamond Edge displays Megs consistent with the ICD definition Meg = 1,000,000 bytes. Note that this is different than the traditional definition of a Megabyte = 1,048,576 bytes used by Atari. ù Split: Selecting split will split your hard disk into a number of partitions of equal size. You will be prompted for the number of partitions to split. An easy way to partition your hard disk into one large partition is to split the disk into 1 partition. ù Maximum: Selecting this option will create as many GEM partitions of the maximum allowable size, for the Rom Version you have selected, that can fit on your disk. An additional partition will be created with any excess disk space. ù Clear: Selecting this option will clear all entered partitioning information. ù Reset: This option will reset the displayed partitioning information to the original information read off the hard disk. ù Atari/ICD: Selecting this button will toggle the state of the extended partitioning mode. If Atari is selected then extended partitions, (more than 4 partitions on the same hard disk) will be laid out in accordance with the Atari extended partition standard. If ICD is selected, extended partitions will be laid out in accordance with the ICD/Supra extended partition standard. Please see section 8.2 for a complete description of extended partitions. ù TOSxxx: Selecting this button will toggle the state of the Rom dependence mode. If TOS1.02 is selected, then partitions whether GEM or BGM will be limited to 32,767 clusters. These disks will be able to be read on any ST regardless of ROM version. If you have TOS 1.4 or above you can specify that partitions may include up to 65,535 clusters. These disks cannot be accessed by machines with TOS1.02 or 1.00. ù Save: You can save the hard disk partitioning information currently displayed to a file for future reference or installation. This option creates a SCSI disk information file equivalent to those created by the Save SCSI Information function of the Archive menu. ù Load: You can load previously saved partition information files by selecting this function. This is useful for partitioning a new disk "just like" another disk. The loaded information is fully editable. ù Print: Selecting this option will print a copy of the currently displayed partition information to your printer. The use of this option is HIGHLY recommended. Having the partitioning information in physical sector 0 wiped out is a more frequent occurrence than most people might imagine. You should always have a printout of your partition parameters and a SCSI information file saved to floppy disk. ù Recalculate: At any time during your editing session you can recalculate the amount of available space on your disk. You can either click on the Recalculate button or press the Return key to update the available information. All of the currently selected options are taken into account and some of the partitions may begin in a slightly different place after recalculation. This is due to changes in the control sector requirements of the different extended partitioning protocols. ù Active: Remember to specify which drives you want to be active. Diamond Edge allows up to 64 different partitions installed on each disk. However, GEMDOS only allows a total of 14 active partitions on all your hard drives. Changing the Active status of extra partitions and using the Install Information Only option is a convenient way to create "Secret" partitions on your hard drive not accessible unless you reactivate it. ù Disk Partitioning Actions After you are satisfied with the partitioning information currently displayed you have four action options: ù Install Only: Select this option if you only want to install the current partition information without rebuilding any partitions. This is used to change the activation status of hidden partitions or to reinstall the partition information after a hard disk crash without changing any of the data on the hard drive. ù Install and Rebuild One: This option will install the displayed partition information and rebuild one specified partition. Rebuilding a partition involves the creation of a boot sector, FAT sectors, and Root Directory sectors of the appropriate size on the specified partition and then zeroing them. All data in the area effected will be lost. ù Install and Rebuild All: Use this option to repartition your entire hard disk. The current disk partitioning information will be installed and all partitions will be rebuilt. All existing data on the entire hard disk will be lost. If you Accidently Rebuild a partition and need information that was previously in that area you can recover the information by reinstalling the old partitioning information and reinstalling the disk structure from an archived Disk Information File. See Archiving Disk Information for instructions on how to perform these life saving actions. ù Cancel: If you have not performed any other action, then Selecting Cancel will return you to the Diamond Edge Basic Window. If you have installed partition information or rebuilt one or more partitions, then selecting Cancel will perform a cold reboot of your system. This is required for the operating system to become aware of the new disk structure.