Partition Manager 0.70

Format/Partition hard discs on all versions of RISC OS
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JonAbbott
Posts: 2938
Joined: Thu Apr 11, 2013 12:13 pm
Location: Essex
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Partition Manager 0.70

Post by JonAbbott »

A drive Partition Manager for all Acorn / ROOL versions of RISC OS.

Features
  • An app that could be bundled RO5, or manually loaded pre RO5
  • Written in BASIC
  • WIMP based
  • Supports RISCOS 3.x onward, with no external dependencies
  • Supports MBR partition tables (Pi)
  • Supports full disc partitioned drives without an MBR partition table
  • Supports partitioning of SCSIFS, SDFS, ADFS hosted drives
  • Format/Initialisation of partitions as FileCore or FAT32
  • Support GPT partition tables
Possible future features
  • Creation of the Primary FAT32 partition for Pi’s
  • Support mapping DOS partitions to DOSDisc files in a FileCore filesystem
  • Initialisation of the Pi FAT32 partition with the latest and/or last stable Pi firmware/RISC OS ROM
  • FileCore partition expansion
  • Support FileCore old and new maps
  • Allow partitions to be reordered
  • Backup/Restore the partition table
  • Option to Initialise a Pi FileCore partition with the current HardDisk4 image
Goals
  • Provide a visual representation of disks and their partitions
  • Provide a simple interface to create and format partitions
  • Allow the FileCore partition on the stock Pi image to be easily extended to fill the disk
  • Replace HForm on RISC OS 3.x onward
In Scope
  • RISC OS 3.x, RISC OS 5.x
  • ADFS, SCSIFS, SDFS, CDFS hosted drives
Out of Scope
  • ST506 hosted drives
  • Adding partition support to the OS
  • PartMan (R-Comp partitioning Module)
Possible future FileSystem support
  • IDEFS devices hosted on the following Podules:
    • APDL
    • Alsystems PowerTec IDE minipodule
    • HCCS
    • ICS
    • Risc Developments
    • SimTec
    • Watford IDE
  • ZIDEFS devices on ICS Podules
  • ADFS drive via Wizzo Module
Mock-up
Mockup.png
Mockup.png (34.42 KiB) Viewed 7221 times
Current Build
Work in progress build. Notes:
  • Supports ADFS, SDFS, SCSIFS and CDFS hosted drives
  • Full FileCore drive, MBR and GPT partitions are supported
  • Does not currently work out a FileCore partition size correctly if it's embedded in an MBR or GPT partition and not using the full partition
  • Does not recognise FAT partitions embedded in a full disk FileCore drive, that have no accompanying MBR/GPT partition entry
  • Currently makes no attempt to check if a FAT partition entry is embedded within a full disk FileCore drive and has an accompanying DOSFS file (ie Pi !Boot.Loader)
  • CDFS does not currently support audio tracks and assumes the whole disc is data
  • You can't resize the window contents
  • The app icon is temporary
  • Supports FAT12, FAT16, FAT32 and FileCore formats
  • Does not calculate the free space in FAT12 or FAT16 partitions
  • Freespace on FAT32 may not be accurate as it shows the freespace as reported in the FAT header; it does not trawl the FAT itself to get the exact current freespace
  • GPT Basic partition contents are not checked for NTFS/FAT formats etc
  • Debug output is written to !PartMgr.debug/txt (if DEBUG%=TRUE in !RunImage)
  • If a disc error occurs whilst reading a partition, it will be marked in red
  • IDEFS FileCore drives are not currently detected
  • It currently relies on FileCore partitions being mounted to display volume information
  • Does not detect drive insertion/removal
  • Writing partitions has currently only been tested on SCSIFS hosted drives. I have not tested SDFS or ADFS although they are implemented
NOTE: This software is used at your own risk and is provided for test purposes only. Do not use when drives that contain valuable data are attached to the system
Attachments
partmgr070.zip
(135.61 KiB) Downloaded 448 times
User avatar
IanJeffray
Posts: 162
Joined: Mon Jan 18, 2021 1:51 pm

Re: Partition Manager

Post by IanJeffray »

This sounds like a big job and a very desirable tool.
Suggestions:
  • Better RISC OS 3.10 rather than RISC OS 3.11 as a minimum?
  • Cope with being run in lowres MODE 12 / 640x256 [May impact font size choice].
  • Ideally sufficiently bijou to fit in a RISC OS 3.20 ROM image.
  • Ideally would run from a self-extracting archive from an 720K DOS floppy.
  • HForm not requiring a mouse can sometimes be a bonus (I'll get me coat...)
JonAbbott
Posts: 2938
Joined: Thu Apr 11, 2013 12:13 pm
Location: Essex
Contact:

Re: Partition Manager

Post by JonAbbott »

IanJeffray wrote: Mon Jan 18, 2021 5:16 pm
  • Better RISC OS 3.10 rather than RISC OS 3.11 as a minimum?
Typo, now corrected to 3.x
IanJeffray wrote: Mon Jan 18, 2021 5:16 pm
  • Cope with being run in lowres MODE 12 / 640x256 [May impact font size choice].
I've yet to look at how to handle TV modes, but I expect you'll just have to scroll the window as I already have the font at 8pt which is bordering on illegible.
IanJeffray wrote: Mon Jan 18, 2021 5:16 pm
  • Ideally sufficiently bijou to fit in a RISC OS 3.20 ROM image.
Yes, this will go into RISC OS 3.20. I'll also look to implement native partition support with ADFS and update FileCore so it supports new formats, with long filenames etc.
IanJeffray wrote: Mon Jan 18, 2021 5:16 pm
  • Ideally would run from a self-extracting archive from an 720K DOS floppy.
I'm sure we can wrap it to self-extract
IanJeffray wrote: Mon Jan 18, 2021 5:16 pm
  • HForm not requiring a mouse can sometimes be a bonus (I'll get me coat...)
This is Wimp only I'm afraid.
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