Partition Manager 0.85

Format/Partition hard discs on all versions of RISC OS
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JonAbbott
Posts: 3066
Joined: Thu Apr 11, 2013 12:13 pm
Location: Essex
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Partition Manager 0.85

Post by JonAbbott »

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

Changes in this build
  • Partitions.MBR/GPT were not using a local buffer for the partition table, which would subsequently become corrupt when checking a partition for a good FileCore defect list in FNfind_FileCore_drive
  • Added a "pi_hack" to FNfind_FileCore_drive and FNread_partition_table_MBR to check for a full-disc FileCore overlayed over an MBR if the partition is marked as FileCore, but doesn't contain a FileCore drive
  • Fixed an issue in FS.IDEFS that caused it to output debug text when debug was off
  • Modified the progress bar to use RO3 Wimp calls to resize the progress icon
Features
  • 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 FAT16/32
  • Supports 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
Possible future FileSystem support
  • IDEFS devices hosted on the following Podules:
    • APDL
    • Alsystems PowerTec IDE minipodule
    • SimTec
    • Watford IDE
  • ADFS drives via Wizzo Module
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, IDEFS, ZIDEFS hosted drives
Out of Scope
  • Adding partition support to the OS
  • PartMan (R-Comp partitioning Module)
Mock-up
Image

Current Build
Work in progress build. Notes:
  • Supports ADFS, IDEFS, HDFFS, ZIDEFS, 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
  • 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
  • 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
  • ST506 drive size detection may not work
  • ICS's implementation of IDEFS has many hardware and IDEFS variants. Support for ICS is going to be hit/miss
  • I've yet to reverse engineer HCCS's partitioning, its work-in-progress
  • Risc Developments' IDEFS does not appear to support partitioning, only full disc FileCore initialising is supported
  • I do not have any IDEFS/ZIDEFS/Whizzo based hardware to test. If you have suitable hardware and spare drives to test with, please provide feedback
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

Please provide feedback / debug reports in the feedback thread
Attachments
partmgr085.zip
(145.08 KiB) Downloaded 465 times
IanS
Posts: 2
Joined: Sat Dec 15, 2018 2:09 pm

Re: Partition Manager 0.85

Post by IanS »

JonAbbott wrote: Sun Oct 09, 2022 8:06 pm I do not have any IDEFS/ZIDEFS/Whizzo based hardware to test. If you have suitable hardware and spare drives to test with, please provide feedback
I'm happy to send you a ZIDEFS podule (8 or 16-bit) FOC, let me know if this would be of use.
https://stardot.org.uk/forums/viewtopic ... 73#p291673
or
https://stardot.org.uk/forums/viewtopic ... 56#p233356

edit: Looks like you have a ZIDEFS podule - https://stardot.org.uk/forums/viewtopic ... 25#p368725
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