Partition Manager 0.88

[JonAbbott]

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

Changes in this build

• fixed an issue in FS.ADFS and FS-IDEFS that caused it to output debug text when debug was off
• fixed an issue where a new volume couldn't be created on an unpartitioned SDFS drive
• fixed a "Division by zero" when only one filesystem is found
• holding ALT while loading now turns on the debug output
• fixed an issue when making changes to MBR/GPT partitioned discs with overlayed full-disc FileCore drives, which would incorrectly write the overlayed FileCore drive as the first partition
• fixed an issue where a fourth MBR partition could not be created if the drive has an overlayed full-disc FileCore drive
• DiscOp's are now checked to ensure the address doesn't exceed the limits:
  • <fs>_DiscOp: 28 bit (256MB)
  • <fs>_SectorDiscOp: 536870911 sectors (256GB for 512 byte LBA, 2TB for 4K)
  • <fs>_DiscOp64: 64 bit (same limits as <fs>_SectorDiscOp / 18,446 ExB when FileCore supports 64bit addressing)
• formatting an existing partition wasn't setting the MBR/GPT partition type
• all partitions except those marked as "Reserved" can now be modified
• FileCore partitions are now checked internally for a valid FileCore drive, it will then attempt to link to a matching mounted FileCore to request the freespace
• added FNprotected_LBA_<filesystem> to allow filesystem drivers to prevent "internal use" LBA from being erased during a FileCore format
• ZIDEFS and ICS based IDEFS both protect LBA 0 and 1 which contain partition information
• removed some unused DiscOp variables from Formats.FileCore and removed the check for Specify in its FNMoanOp
• Formats.FileCore now checks for non-ADFS partitions at the the of FileCore areas
• adjusted the WIMP width of single partition drives and partitions with an overlayed "full disc" FileCore so they align with the Window width
• fixed an issue with the menu widths on RISC OS 3
• RISC iX partitions are now displayed
• added icon sprites for RO3
• holding ALT when launching will launch in DEBUG mode and write !PartMgr.DEBUG/TXT

Features

• Supports RISCOS 3.x onward, with no external dependencies
• Supports full-disc unpartitioned FileCore drives
• Supports GPT partition tables
• Supports MBR partition tables
• Supports MBR partition tables with an overlayed FileCore drive (Pi)
• Supports partitioning of SCSIFS, SDFS, ADFS hosted drives
• Format/Initialisation of partitions as FileCore or FAT16/32
• Supports the following IDEFS Podules:
  • HCCS (Read only, no partitioning)
  • ICS ideA (Read/Write, with partitioning)
  • Risc Developments (Read/Write, doesn't support partitioning)
  • Simtec (Read/Write, no partitioning)
• Supports ZIDEFS (read-only, with partitioning)
• Supports ST506 drives (Read/Write, doesn't support partitioning) - untested
• Supports RISC iX partitions (read-only)

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
• FileSystem support:
  • IDEFS devices hosted on the following Podules:
  • APDL
  • Alsystems PowerTec IDE minipodule
  • Watford IDE
  • ADFS drives via Wizzo Module
• Partitioning support:
  • HCCS
  • ICS
  • Simtec

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


Current Build
Work in progress build notes:

• 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 link a FAT partition to an accompanying DOSFS file on the Pi (ie !Boot.Loader)
• CDFS does not currently support audio tracks and assumes the whole disc is data
• You can't resize the window contents
• 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 (hold ALT when launching to start in Debug mode)
• If a disc error occurs whilst reading a partition, it will be marked in red
• It relies on FileCore partitions being mounted to display the free space
• 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
• HCCS partitioning is not currently implemented
• Partitions with an overlayed FileCore drive will incorrectly show partitions that start after the FileCore area as being within the FileCore area

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