143 lines
6.9 KiB
Plaintext
143 lines
6.9 KiB
Plaintext
FIPS 1.5 - file SPECIAL.DOC
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S1. Use with Stacker/SuperStor/Doublespace etc.
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S2. Use with OS/2
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S3. Use with OnTrack Disk Manager and similar drivers
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------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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S1. Use with Stacker/SuperStor/Doublespace etc.
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These programs are used to increase disk space by compressing files. They
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all work similarly. When installed, they create a compressed volume on the
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disk, into which all the files are moved. This compressed volume is a big
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file that fills up almost all space on the disk. After booting with the
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compression driver, the previous drive C: that contains the compressed
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volume is renamed to D:, and the compressed volume itself becomes C:.
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From reports I received from users of Stacker and DoubleSpace, I distilled
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the following scheme. If you have difficulties, please let me know.
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a. Make sure that there is enough space on the compressed partition to be
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split.
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b. Use the Checkdisk program that comes with the compression software.
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c. Remove the Windows swapfile if you have one.
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d. Decrease the size of the compressed volume with the utilities that come
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with the compression software.
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e. Defragment the uncompressed drive that contains the compressed volume
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(in most cases drive D:)
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f. use FIPS as described in FIPS.DOC
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If your system will not let you defragment the uncompressed drive or if
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the compressed volume can not be defragmented because it has the hidden
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attribute set, FIPS might not offer as much space for the new partition
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as is shown in the directory listing of the uncompressed drive. You should
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add the following steps:
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e1. Copy the defragmentation program (e.g. diskopt.exe, defrag.exe) of the
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system to the boot disk
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e2. Boot without the compression device driver. This may be tricky, since in
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some systems the driver is part of the system files on the boot disk. Try
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using a boot disk from an older DOS version, or consult your manuals.
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e3. Remove Hidden, Readonly and System attributes from compressed volume
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(use dir /a:h to find the name of the the compressed volume)
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e4. Defragment the partition.
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It was reported that you can use FIPS either with or without the compression
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driver loaded.
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S2. Use with OS/2
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FIPS is known to have problems with OS/2, especially with the dual boot
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feature. This is partly due to the fact that OS/2 dual boot uses two copies
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of the boot sector - if only one copy is changed by FIPS, OS/2 will not
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work properly.
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But even when taking this into consideration, some people have reported
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strange error messages by OS/2. I encourage you to give FIPS a try, but
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make sure to save the root and boot sector to floppy disk with FIPS before
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making any changes. FIPS might work if you
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a. Remove dual boot from the partition if you use it. I don't know if and
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how this is possible, please consult your manual or call IBM. If you
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find out, please let me know, so that I can include this info.
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b. Boot from a bootable DOS disk
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c. Run FIPS (make sure to make FIPS save the root and boot sector to floppy)
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d. Reboot, check if everything is ok under DOS
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e. Boot from your OS/2 installation disk and reinstall dual boot if
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necessary.
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f. Boot to OS/2 and look if everything works as expected.
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If e. does not work (OS/2 complains with 'hardware error' or something
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similar), use RESTORRB to undo the changes FIPS made, reboot again and
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reinstall dual boot (if necessary).
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So far I did not find out what OS/2 complains about. Since I do not use
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OS/2, I have to rely on user reports. If you try FIPS with OS/2,
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I would like to hear about it. Any information is welcome, even if it
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is just "it worked" or "it did not work". If you have an idea what might
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be the problem or any technical information, please tell me about it.
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S3. Use with OnTrack Disk Manager and similar drivers
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Note: Everything said here also applies to similar device drivers that
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perform the same functions as OnTrack. OnTrack is just the most widely
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used such system.
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I'll try to start at the beginning:
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Older BIOSes have a limit on the 'drive geometry' built in, i.e. they
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can only properly handle disk drives of up to 1024 cylinders, 16 heads
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and 63 sectors. Given a sector size of 512, this results in a total
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limit of 504 MB. Most hard drives are far larger nowadays, especially
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in the number of cylinders. So a method for accessing these large drives
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had to be devised. For compatibility reasons, the cylinder and sector
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count could not be extended, but there was still room in the number of
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heads value - up to 256 heads.
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Modern BIOSes (i.e. BIOSes prepared for EIDE drives) do exactly this,
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they trick DOS into thinking that the disk has less than 1024 cylinders,
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but more than 16 heads (this is indicated by 'extended sector translation'
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or 'logical block addressing' in the BIOS setup). The same is true for
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SCSI disks - in this case the translation is done by the BIOS of the
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SCSI controller. If you have one of these, you will probably not be using
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OnTrack anyway.
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OnTrack Disk Manager is a special program that does the translation in
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software. It installs its own boot program in the hard disk's master
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boot record, so that it is loaded before any other disk access is
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done. This means that you can not access the hard disk without loading
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the OnTrack device driver first.
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This is also true for FIPS. If you just boot from a floppy disk, you will
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not be able to access the C: drive, and FIPS will not work. As far as
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I know, you _must_ boot from the hard disk, after which FIPS will work
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properly.
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Note to Linux users: You can NOT use this scheme to create a Linux
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partition. This is because the partitioning information that FIPS modifies
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is on a level above the OTDM driver, so you can only access them after
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having loaded the driver. Since Linux does not use DOS drivers, it can
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not access the new partition. The only thing that Linux will see is a
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large non-DOS partition: the OnTrack partition (system indicator byte
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54h or 56h).
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Unfortunately, I currently know of no way to get rid of the OnTrack
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device driver or to split off a partition for use under Linux without
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completely reformatting and thus losing all data. It might be possible,
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given sufficient technical information, but since I personally don't
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use it, I can't investigate further into this.
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If you are prepared to reformat the disk (after backing up all your data),
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you can just delete the OnTrack partition with Linux fdisk and create
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new partitions as you require. Note that you can create a DOS partition
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at the beginning of the disk. You won't need OnTrack to use it, as
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long as its last cylinder is less than 1024. Linux of course has no
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problems accessing the cylinders beyond 1024, so you can use all the rest
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of the disk for Linux partitions. In case of problems, read the EIDE-
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Mini-HOWTO, it contains some more information on this from the Linux
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point of view.
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