home
***
CD-ROM
|
disk
|
FTP
|
other
***
search
/
PC World 1999 October
/
PCWorld_1999-10_cd1.bin
/
Hardware
/
Drivers
/
MastBoot
/
AEFDISK.TXT
< prev
next >
Wrap
Text File
|
1999-06-27
|
28KB
|
652 lines
╔═════════════════════════════════════╗
║ AEFDISK v1.4 DOCUMENTATION ║
║ Copyright (c) 1997-1999 Nagy Daniel ║
║ Release date: 06-28-1999 ║
╚═════════════════════════════════════╝
┌──────────┐
│ CONTENTS │
└──────────┘
Disclaimer............................ 1
Copyright............................. 2
Introduction.......................... 3
Files in the Package.................. 4
Features.............................. 5
Requirements.......................... 6
Usage................................. 7
Partition types....................... 8
Technical information................. 9
Registration......................... 10
History.............................. 11
Contact, about the author............ 12
┌────────────┐
│ DISCLAIMER ├──────────────────────── 1 ─────────────────────────────────────
└────────────┘
Using this program comes without any warranty. The author
and distributors will not accept responsibility for any
damage incurred directly or indirectly through use of this
program.
In other words: use at your own risk!
┌───────────┐
│ COPYRIGHT ├───────────────────────── 2 ─────────────────────────────────────
└───────────┘
All copyrights are exclusively owned by the author, Nagy Daniel.
You are NOT allowed to sell, modify and reverse engineer either
version of the program without the author's written agreement!
You are NOT allowed to distribute the registered version
of the program without the author's written agreement!
You can distribute the shareware version freely as long as no
money is asked for it and all files in the package are intact.
┌──────────────┐
│ INTRODUCTION ├────────────────────── 3 ─────────────────────────────────────
└──────────────┘
AEFDISK (Advanced EFDISK) is a disk partitioning program, based
on EFDISK, which is part of the MasterBooter package.
With AEFDISK you can:
- Create and delete primary, extended and logical partitions
- Format FAT partitions
- Hide and unhide primary FAT, NTFS/HPFS partitions
- Activate a partition
- Show the partition table
- Show characteristics of harddisks
- Install the standard MBR loader to a harddisk
- Set up hundreds of harddisks with a simple batch file on a floppy
in a highly flexible and comfortable way from the command line.
AEFDISK supports all partition types. The original FDISK program
doesn't allow you to create more than one primary partition.
AEFDISK does, therefore it's a powerful tool for creating
any combinations of partitions. This can be extremely useful
for system administrators, schools and computer store employees.
Put it in the autoexec.bat of a system floppy, and you're
ready to partition hundreds of harddisks quickly!
ANSI C library (large model) is also available!
┌──────────────────────┐
│ FILES IN THE PACKAGE ├────────────── 4 ─────────────────────────────────────
└──────────────────────┘
AEFDISK.EXE - The executable
AEFDISK.TXT - Documentation (this file)
FAQ.TXT - Frequently asked questions and answers
FILE_ID.DIZ - Shareware info file (in shareware version only)
REGISTER.FRM - Registration form (in shareware version only)
┌──────────┐
│ FEATURES ├────────────────────────── 5 ─────────────────────────────────────
└──────────┘
- Creating all types of partitions, with absolute or relative size
- Deleting partitions based on their type or place in the table
- Formatting FAT partitions quickly
- Hiding and unhiding primary FAT, NTFS/HPFS partitions
- Activating a partition
- Installing standard loader code in the Master Boot Record
- Displaying partition information
- Displaying logical characteristics information
- Completely command line driven
- Automatic calculation of free space and available partition entry
- Handling as many harddisks as your hardware and BIOS support
- Support for max 8 GB harddisk without Extended BIOS
- Support for max 2 TB harddisks if Extended BIOS is present
┌──────────────┐
│ REQUIREMENTS ├────────────────────── 6 ─────────────────────────────────────
└──────────────┘
- 80386 processor or up
- MS-DOS or compatible operating system
- At least one harddisk
┌───────┐
│ USAGE ├───────────────────────────── 7 ─────────────────────────────────────
└───────┘
Note: Playing with partitions is a risky job! Use this program only
if you know what you're doing! Be sure to read the documentation!
1) Installation
You can copy these files (this docs and the executable) together
wherever you like. This program doesn't need any additional
settings. Just execute it.
Copying this program to a system floppy can be useful.
2) Command line usage
Syntax: aefdisk [harddisk number] [switches] <command1> [command2] ...
Valid commands are:
/pri:<size>:<type>[:n] - create primary partition
/ext:<size>[:n] - create extended partition
/log:<size> - create logical drive
/delete:<n> - delete an entry
* /deltype:<type>[:n] - delete partition(s) of specified type
/delall - delete all partitions on a disk
/notdel:<type>[,types] - delete all except specified type(s)
/activate:<n> - activate a partition
/hidefat[:n] - hide primary FAT partition(s)
/hident[:n] - hide primary NTFS/HPFS partition(s)
/unhidefat[:n] - unhide primary FAT partition(s)
/unhident[:n] - unhide primary NTFS/HPFS partition(s)
/formatfat[:n][:label] - format FAT partitions, can be a switch
/allsize - put the HD size in ALLSIZE environment var.
/freesize - puts size of unpartitioned space in FREESIZE
/mbr - install the standard DOS MBR loader
/show - show partition table
/info - show logical characteristics
/? - this help message
Valid switches are:
* /rel - use percentages at size definition
/reboot - reboot when ready
/noebios - disables EBIOS access
/nolimit - disables FAT limit check
* - available in registered version only. In the shareware version,
the size of the extended and logical partitions are limited to
maximum 1Gig.
- Options between <> are compulsory, between [] are not
- n is a valid partition number from 1 to 4 if defined, except
the /formatfat command.
- Harddisk number is a number starting from 1. The default is 1.
If you specify '*' here, then all commands will be executed on
all installed harddisks.
- The /rel command is effective for the commands after it
- The type is hexadecimal. Don't append a 'h' at the end
If there was an error then the return value is 1, else 0.
On error, the modified partition table will not be written.
This means that you can safely use the program in a batch file.
Creating partitions:
-------------------
You can create partitions with the /pri, /ext or /log commands.
The /pri command can be used to create primary partitions.
The size and type must be specified, partition number is
optional. If the specified size is 0 then all available
space will be allocated.
The /ext command can be used to create an extended partition,
which can contain many logical drives. Only one extended partition
is allowed per harddisk. If the specified size is 0 then all
available space will be allocated.
The /log command can be used to create logical drives in an
extended partition. The extended partition must exist before
using this command.
Deleting partitions:
-------------------
You can delete partitions with the /delete, /deltype, delall
and /notdel commands. Do not put deleting commands after the
/rel switch!
The /delete command deletes the specified partition entry.
The /deltype command deletes a partition or partitions
of the specified type. If the entry number is not specified,
then all paritions of the specified type will be deleted.
If the entry number is also specified, then the partition will
be deleted only if the specified type matches the partition type.
The /delall command deletes all partitions on a harddisk.
The /notdel command deletes all partitions except the specified
types separated with commas. You can specify up to 20 types to
be excluded.
Relative sizes:
--------------
The /rel command can be used to avoid specifying absolute MB
sizes. If the /rel command is used then all size definitions
will be treated as percent values from 1 to 100.
This command can be used with the /pri, /ext and /log commands.
This command calculates the unpartitioned space and divides
it as specified, see the examples below.
If a specified type doesn't allow the size that is calculated,
then that partition will be automatically sized to the maximum
size the type allows, and the remaining space will be added to
the next partition which follows it on the command line.
For example, you have a 5Gig harddisk, and do the following:
aefdisk /rel /pri:50:6 /ext:50 /log:100
Then aefdisk will create a 2Gig BIGDOS partition (not 2.5,
because BIGDOS allows only 2Gig), gives a warning message,
and append the remaining 0.5Gig to the extended partition.
Hiding FAT, NTFS/HPFS partitions:
--------------------------------
The /hidefat command hides primary FAT partitions on a harddisk.
If the partition entry is specified, then this command tries
to hide only that partition. The /unhidefat command is similar.
/hident and /unhident are the same but for NTFS/HPFS partitions.
Formatting FAT partitions:
--------------------------
The /formatfat command allows formatting FAT16 and FAT32
partitions. It can be a command or a switch:
1)If the partition number is not specified, then this command
acts as a switch, and must appear before any partition
creation command on the command line. In this case all
partitions which are created will be immediately formatted.
2)If the partition number is specified, only that partition
will be formatted, if it already exists. In this case, an
optional volume label can be specified. If the specified
partition number is 5 or higher, then it'll mean a logical
drive. 5 means the first logical drive and so on.
You have to reboot to use the formatted drive(s)!
Other commands and switches:
---------------------------
- The /mbr command installs the standard loader code on the
specified harddisk. It's like the original 'fdisk /mbr' command.
- The /show command prints some information about the
partition table of the specified harddisk.
- The /info command shows the logical characteristics of the
harddisk and checks if extended BIOS is availabe.
- The /reboot command causes a reboot after all modifications
are written back to the disk. If there is an error, then
this command does nothing.
- The /noebios switch disables EBIOS access. This can be
useful on machines which have buggy EBIOS support.
- The /nolimit switch disables FAT size checking. This may be
useful when creating FAT partitions larger than 2 gigs
- The /allsize command puts the HD size in megabytes to
an environment variable named ALLSIZE. This can be useful
for making size dependant decisions in batch files
- The /freesize command puts the largest unpartitioned size
in megabytes to an environment variable named FREESIZE.
This can be useful for making size dependant decisions in
batch files
Examples:
--------
- aefdisk 2 /delall /pri:200:6 /pri:300:7:4
The above command deletes all partitions on the second
harddisk and then creates two primary partitions. The first
is a 200 MB BIGDOS partition, and it is be created in the first
available entry. The second is a 300MB HPFS partition,
and it is created in the fourth entry if it is empty.
- aefdisk /pri:300:7 /ext:1000 /log:1000
The above command creates a 300MB primary HPFS and a 1000MB
extended partition with one 1000MB logical drive.
- aefdisk /pri:0:6
This command finds the largest available space and
creates a BIGDOS partition there.
- aefdisk /rel /pri:30:6 /ext:70 /log:40 /log:60
The above command calculates the available unpartitioned space
first. Then it creates a primary BIGDOS partition, which
occupies 30% of the free space. The remaining 70% space
is assigned to an extended partition. In the extended partition,
there are two logical drives. The first occupies 40% of the
extended partition, the second occupies 60%.
- aefdisk /formatfat /pri:120:83 /ext:8000 /log:8000
The above command creates a 120MB Linux partition, and then
creates an extended partition with one logical drive in the
remaining free space, which is calculated automatically.
The logical drive will be formatted.
- aefdisk 2 /notdel:1,6,83 /mbr /hidefat
The above command deletes all partitions except the specified
ones (FAT12, BIGDOS and Ext2FS), installs the loader code in
the MBR, then hides all FAT partitions on the second harddisk.
- aefdisk * /hident
The above command hides all primary NTFS/HPFS partitions on
all available harddisks.
┌─────────────────┐
│ PARTITION TYPES ├─────────────────── 8 ─────────────────────────────────────
└─────────────────┘
These are the currently known partition types. These values are
from Ralph Brown's interrupt list. (A big thanks goes to him for
maintaining that impressive documentation!)
ID Name
── ────
00h empty
01h DOS 12-bit FAT
02h XENIX root file system
03h XENIX /usr file system (obsolete)
04h DOS 16-bit FAT (up to 32M)
05h DOS 3.3+ extended partition
06h DOS 3.31+ Large File System (16-bit FAT, over 32M)
07h QNX
07h OS/2 HPFS
07h Windows NT NTFS
07h Advanced Unix
08h OS/2 (v1.0-1.3 only)
08h AIX bootable partition, SplitDrive
08h Commodore DOS
08h DELL partition spanning multiple drives
09h AIX data partition
09h Coherent filesystem
0Ah OS/2 Boot Manager
0Ah OPUS
0Ah Coherent swap partition
0Bh Windows 95 with 32-bit FAT
0Ch Windows 95 with 32-bit FAT (using LBA-mode INT 13 extensions)
0Eh LBA VFAT (same as 06h but using LBA-mode INT 13)
0Fh LBA VFAT (same as 05h but using LBA-mode INT 13)
10h OPUS
11h OS/2 Boot Manager hidden 12-bit FAT partition
12h Compaq Diagnostics partition
14h (using Novell DOS 7.0 FDISK to delete Linux Native part)
14h OS/2 Boot Manager hidden sub-32M 16-bit FAT partition
16h OS/2 Boot Manager hidden over-32M 16-bit FAT partition
17h OS/2 Boot Manager hidden HPFS partition
18h AST special Windows swap file
1Bh Hidden Windows 95 with 32-bit FAT (not official!)
1Ch Hidden Windows 95 with 32-bit LBA FAT (not official!)
1Eh Hidden Windows 95 with LBA BIGDOS (not official!)
21h officially listed as reserved
23h officially listed as reserved
24h NEC MS-DOS 3.x
26h officially listed as reserved
31h officially listed as reserved
33h officially listed as reserved
34h officially listed as reserved
36h officially listed as reserved
38h Theos
3Ch PowerQuest PartitionMagic recovery partition
40h VENIX 80286
41h Personal RISC Boot
42h SFS (Secure File System) by Peter Gutmann
4Fh Oberon
50h OnTrack Disk Manager, read-only partition
51h OnTrack Disk Manager, read/write partition
51h NOVEL
52h CP/M
52h Microport System V/386
53h OnTrack Disk Manager, write-only partition???
54h OnTrack Disk Manager (DDO)
56h GoldenBow VFeature
61h SpeedStor
63h Unix SysV/386, 386/ix
63h Mach, MtXinu BSD 4.3 on Mach
63h GNU HURD
64h Novell NetWare 286
65h Novell NetWare (3.11)
67h Novell
68h Novell
69h Novell
70h DiskSecure Multi-Boot
71h officially listed as reserved
73h officially listed as reserved
74h officially listed as reserved
75h PC/IX
76h officially listed as reserved
80h Minix v1.1 - 1.4a
81h Minix v1.4b+
81h Linux
81h Mitac Advanced Disk Manager
82h Linux Swap partition
82h Prime
82h Solaris
83h Linux native file system (ext2fs/xiafs)
84h OS/2-renumbered type 04h partition (hiding DOS C: drive)
86h officially listed as reserved
87h HPFS Fault-Tolerant mirrored partition
93h Amoeba file system
94h Amoeba bad block table
A1h officially listed as reserved
A3h officially listed as reserved
A4h officially listed as reserved
A5h FreeBSD, BSD/386
A6h officially listed as reserved
B1h officially listed as reserved
B3h officially listed as reserved
B4h officially listed as reserved
B6h officially listed as reserved
B7h BSDI file system (secondarily swap)
B8h BSDI swap partition (secondarily file system)
C1h DR DOS 6.0 LOGIN.EXE-secured 12-bit FAT partition
C4h DR DOS 6.0 LOGIN.EXE-secured 16-bit FAT partition
C6h DR DOS 6.0 LOGIN.EXE-secured Huge partition
C7h Syrinx Boot
D8h CP/M-86
DBh CP/M, Concurrent CP/M, Concurrent DOS
DBh CTOS (Convergent Technologies OS)
E1h SpeedStor 12-bit FAT extended partition
E3h DOS read-only
E3h Storage Dimensions
E4h SpeedStor 16-bit FAT extended partition
E5h officially listed as reserved
E6h officially listed as reserved
EBh BeOS partition
F1h Storage Dimensions
F2h DOS 3.3+ secondary partition
F3h officially listed as reserved
F4h SpeedStor
F4h Storage Dimensions
F6h officially listed as reserved
FEh LANstep
FEh IBM PS/2 IML
FFh Xenix bad block table
┌───────────────────────┐
│ TECHNICAL INFORMATION ├───────────── 9 ─────────────────────────────────────
└───────────────────────┘
General information:
────────────────────
A harddisk can contain up to four primary partitions. The partition
table (which resides in the very first sector of your harddisk)
describes the type, bootability and starting/ending cylinder number
of the partitions. In bootable partitions, the first sector is
always the so called 'boot sector' which contains a small OS loader.
In these partitions you can install any operating system in theory.
About FAT types:
────────────────
There are four types of FAT (File Allocation Table).
1: FAT12 is now obsolete, it can only handle partitions up to
16 MB. Also used on floppy disks.
2: FAT16 is the next step. It can be used if a DOS partition
is between 16MB and 32Mb.
3: BIGDOS is also a 16-bit type, but allows larger partition sizes.
Plain DOS and Windows95 use this type nowadays (OS/2, WindowsNT
and Linux can also be installed over FAT, but there is no point
for doing that). The maximum partition size is 2Gb.
4: FAT32 is the newest, it is introduced in Windows95 OEM Service
Release 2. It allows really big partition sizes, but it's
incompatible with the older types.
┌──────────────┐
│ REGISTRATION ├────────────────────── 10 ────────────────────────────────────
└──────────────┘
Registration benefits the following:
- Partitioning with relative size
- Deleting by partition type
Registration fees:
Number of licenses Price in USD Notes
────────────────── ──────────── ──────────────────
1 50 50 USD per license
2-5 150 30 USD per license
6-10 200 20 USD per license
11-20 300 15 USD per license
21-50 500 10 USD per license
51-100 800 8 USD per license
Library version 2000
One license means that you can use the software on one boot floppy.
The library version is a callable ANSI C library (large model).
! Registration via E-mail is NOT accepted, since your signature
! is required!
Upon registering you'll get the latest registered version,
and the newer versions for free if needed.
You can register in three ways:
───────────────────────────────
1) Send cheqe or money order to: Nagy Daniel
Use registered mail only. 2011 Budakalasz
Don't send coins! Ciklamen u. 19.
HUNGARY
2)a Bank transfer from Hungary:
Address: Erste Bank Rt.
8200 Veszprem
Egyetemi fiok 1.
Account No.: 11654005-17340601-54000003
2)b Bank transfer from other country:
Address: Magyar Kulkereskedelmi Bank Rt.
Veszpremi fiok
8200 Veszprem
Ovaros ter 3.
Hungary
Swift code: MKKB HU HB
Account No.: 856-02339-1100-4013
3) Via Albert's Ambry. Check out http://www.alberts.com and
search for 'aefdsk' there. Click on 'Buy It!' to download
the registered version using your credit card number.
It's probably the most comfortable way of registering.
Getting the software:
────────────────────
You can order your copy on a 1.44Mb floppy diskette.
In this case you have to pay additional 5 USD for postage and package.
You can also order via E-mail transfer (preferred). Then you'll
get your copy attached to an E-mail.
Warning!
───────
You're not allowed to copy or distribute the registered version
of this software. If you do so, please consider that my whole work
(many weeks I can say...) will be almost wasted time.
Please support shareware!
┌─────────┐
│ HISTORY ├─────────────────────────── 11 ────────────────────────────────────
└─────────┘
Version:
1.0 - First official release
1.1 - AEFDISK checks the size and type. Now it is not possible
to create invalid size for a size-limited partition type
- The /notdel command allows more types to be excluded
- Added support for NTFS/HPFS partition hiding
- Added /reboot command
- Added /formatfat command for immediate FAT formatting
1.2 - Added support for EBIOS calls. The program can handle
disks up to 2 terabytes if EBIOS is present
- ANSI C library version is also available (large model)
- The /formatfat command changed, please read the documentation
- Added /info command to display characteristics and EBIOS info
1.3 - Bugfixes (formatting, LBA 2 CHS translation)
- Added FAT32 formatting
- Added /noebios switch to disable EBIOS access
- Added /nolimit switch to disable FAT size checks
- Added /putsize command to put HD size in environment variable
- DOS partitions formatted with AEFDISK can boot from beyond 2 gigs
- Added FAQ.TXT
1.4 - /putsize renamed to /allsize
- Added /freesize command to put free size in environment variable
- Added BeFS partition type
- Now /info shows total capacity too
┌─────────┐
│ CONTACT ├─────────────────────────── 12 ────────────────────────────────────
└─────────┘
If you have any problems, questions or suggestions you can
contact me through snail mail or e-mail.
Bug reports, ideas are also welcomed!
Currently I'm a student at the University of Veszprem,
department of Information Technology. I'm 25 (in 1999).
Postal address: Internet E-mail address:
─────────────── ────────────────────────
Nagy Daniel aefdisk@cyberjunkie.com
2011 Budakalasz
Ciklamen u. 19
Hungary
Fax: (36) 26 340-472 WWW homepage:
─── ─────────────
http://www.cyberjunkie.com/aefdisk