APT Partition Editor and Utilities User's Manual
Contents
1. Export Partition Table PTB lt Ret gt zselect lt Esc gt cancel lt Tab gt z input You can move between the file list and the input line with the lt Tab gt key Use lt Ctrl L gt to followed by A through O to select a drive letter When you ve logged a suitable location for the exported partition table type its name in the input line and press lt Enter gt The partition table will be exported to disk with the extension PTB You can use the Import Table function later on with a different physical disk to load the exact same partition structure into the editor and then write it to the other disk If you decide that to completely resize the APT or FAT partitions on the physical disk ata later date select Disk gt Initialize disk from the opening FDISK screen and then select the disk you want to reinitialize Be aware that this is a very destructive operation which will result in the loss of all existing information in both the FAT and APT areas of the hard disk When editing partitions FDISK offers both disk and partition level property sheets Disk gt Properties displays information about the APT area of the physical disk Partition View Help S1Ze Drv BPS aAtr Disk properties GENERIC IDE Device 1 Disk sectors 522240 Bytes sector S12 Disk capacity 255 MB APT version 0 0 Part CUnallocated Spaced 00087127 Partitions V22246 Free secs 10 APT Partition Editor and Utilities2. Partition gt Properties displays the physical size of a given partition in MB Disk Partition View Help S1Ze DrvBPS aAtr 65535 C 512 Aa 6704 Unallocated 4 Partition properties Size on dask 32767 KE Partition name Cunnamedd 861 127 Partitions 456704 Free secs In addition to FDISK s role as an interactive partition table editor you can also use the program to simply list the partition tables on your disk s Simply type FDISK L and FDISK will list the partition tables to the screen just as they appear on the hard disk note FDISK s partition table listing does not reflect any changes made to drive letter allocation using MOUNT see the section on dynamic partition mounting DSS FOISK L Num Drv 51ze 65535 659535 65535 By default FDISK lists the partition tables of all drives present i e both master and slave if you have two drives To narrow the selection just follow the L switch with 1 for master or 2 for slave 11 APT Partition Editor and Utilities Support Utilities The other programs supplied on the support disk are HDDINFO PARTINFO DEVINFO and MOUNT HDDINFO simply displays geometry and manufacturer information about the physical hard disk It also shows the exact position in sectors of the FAT32 if present and APT segments of the disk DS HDDINFO Device name GENERIC ae eee ee Bus id a Sector size S12 bytes Sectors 524160 FATS2 Start 63 FATS
3. Partition name Cunnamedd 861 127 Partitions 196668 Free secs Press lt Esc gt for menu Partitions are 512 bytes per sector BPS by default but you may also change this by pressing S or choosing the appropriate menu option You get three options 128 256 and 512bps corresponding to single double and quad density respectively Partition View Help 2 65535 CiibP 21A B 196606 Unaj 256 ted Partition name Cunnamedd O8681 12 7 Partitions 196666 Free secs Press Esc for menu Partitions can have names up to 39 characters long Pressing N or selecting Edit Name on the menu will allow you to type the partition name Press lt Return gt when done You may also set the attributes in the Atr column via the menu or using the hotkeys A means the partition is active it will be mounted at startup providing it is assigned a drive letter APT Partition Editor and Utilities L means the partition is write locked so it will not be possible to write to it it will be read only B means the partition is the boot partition There can only be a single boot partition and this is the partition that AUTOEXEC BAT will be read from when the computer boots It will also become the default drive This option is a convenient way of for example booting from drive C and leaving drives A and B free for optional SIO devices similar to a traditional PC setup Just create a partition wi
4. Suitable care is exercised during the design stage In theory a Compact Flash card of up to 4GB can be completely filled with 32MB partitions all switched in and out of the filing system on demand 16 APT Partition Editor and Utilities Benchmarking and Stability Testing Your APT software distribution may also contain two KMK programs RWTEST and RWCRC RWTEST will establish the transfer speed of the hard disk interface and RWCRC will perform a cyclic redundancy check on a large file in order to ascertain that I O on the interface is free from errors A pass using RWCRC usually means a stable hard disk interface You should obtain the latest versions of RWCRC and RWTEST from the Other Stuff page of KMK s website http drac030 atari8 info Customising the System If you use the SDX Imaging utility to change the contents of the SDX CAR device note that FDISK COM depends on the presence of the HDDLIB DLL and UILIB DLL files and MOUNT COM requires HDDLIB DLL These two files must be accessible via the SpartaDOS X path in order for the dependant programs to work If you remove all or part of software Suite from CAR please ensure that the DLLs are made available to FDISK and MOUNT otherwise they won t work 17 APT Partition Editor and Utilities Credits Thanks to the following e Candle for the SIDE design e Zaxon for SIDE carts e KMK and Trub for SIDE SDX ROMs and for patiently answering my questions e
5. FDISK So how do we mount partitions or change a mounted partition s drive letter First use FDISK to create at least three partitions on the master disk and give them all unique names Assign the first partition ID 1 drive letter C to use as the boot drive but leave the rest of the partitions without drive letters Save the partition table and exit FDISK Now type MOUNT L You ll get a list of the partitions you created but only one of them will have a drive letter drive C in this case To mount a partition by ID include the N switch Type MOUNT N E 3 MOUNT will mount the second partition on drive E You may include a device number after the partition ID when mounting by ID so If the desired partition is on the slave device type MOUNT N E 3 2 In either case you should now be able to type E to log the drive and format it with FORMAT Now we ll un mount the drive Type 14 APT Partition Editor and Utilities MOUNT U E The MOUNT program will remove partition 3 from the partition table in RAM and drive E will no longer be accessible Note that at this stage there has been absolutely no permanent link between the drive letter E and partition 3 By using MOUNT to mount the partition we merely allocated it drive letter E temporarily Until the partition is permanently allocated a drive letter using FDISK or with MOUNT s W switch which means write this change to the partition
6. on the disk not occupied by APT partitions Whether or not you specify that a FAT32 partition should be created in the next dialogue you will be asked for the size of the APT segment on the disk Define APT Size Free Space MBI 255 APT Size CME O Free space represents the total size of the physical hard disk in megabytes If you chose to create a FAT32 partition in the previous step that partition will consume all the disk space you don t allocate for Atari partitions Note that the minimum size of the FAT partition is 32MB If you chose not to have a FAT32 partition you may allocate all of the free space to the APT Once you have specified the size of the APT the MBR will be written to the disk and you ll be presented with the Atari partition table editor as shown in the next screenshot APT Partition Editor and Utilities Partition View Help S12720 Drv BPS atr Partition name CUnallocated Space BB6O 127 Partitions 62144 Free secs Press Esc for menu You will note that the menu bar has expanded to show three items To activate the menu press lt Esc gt Use the cursor keys to choose the menu you wish to open then press lt Return gt You can then scroll through the unfurled menus with the left and right cursor keys To create a partition press lt Esc gt move the highlight to Partition press lt Return gt highlight Create New then press lt Return gt again Partition e D
7. 2 Size 260096 APT Start 260159 APT Size 262144 Dz DEVINFO by KMK displays information about devices connected to the Parallel Bus Interface The DISKINFO spec used by DEVINFO has been expanded to include SIDE and MyIDE both of which hook into the LSIO vector and are not PBI devices so that DEVINFO can report the same information about these interfaces too The picture below shows typical output from DEVINFO when used with the SIDE driver DS DEVINFO Unit 1 GENERIC Bus id 2 8 Sector S12 Scount S24 No response response response response response response response response 8680 7FFE Q Unit Unit Unit Unit Unit Unit Unit Unit Unit Unit Unit Unit Unit a Ae LE AA Uie g P pl G ll Se se 8 8 8 on on response response response response response response 12 APT Partition Editor and Utilities PARTINFO displays information about mounted partitions including the drive number partition name and partition ID for each volume PARTINFO shows drive assignments regardless of the original partition table on disk If you want to see how the effects of dynamic partition mounting in relation to the partition table on disk use MOUNT L described in the next section 13 APT Partition Editor and Utilities Dynamic Named Partition Mounting The second support application is MOUNT This program permits the dynamic mounting and ejecting of partitions during a session in a simi
8. APT Partition Editor and Utilities APT Partition Editor and Utilities Version 1 0 User s Manual Introduction The Atari Partition Table APT is a design standard drafted by KMK intended to provide compatibility among compliant Atari hard disk interface hardware Any hard disk interface whose firmware driver or BIOS follows the APT specification will be compatible with the APT partition editor and associated utilities such as DEVINFO and MOUNT Currently the SIDE and MylIDE interfaces have APT drivers which work with the APT software It is hoped that IDE Plus and the KMK JZ interface will soon have APT support allowing for hard disk media to be completely interchangeable between all these complaint interfaces Currently the SIDE and MyIDE APT drivers are reliant on the use of SpartaDOS X and it follows that the APT partitioning software also currently requires the use of this DOS When bootable interfaces such as IDE Plus adopt the APT standard APT software will be available to run under different disk operating systems Features and Utilities The current APT software implementation written by Flashjazzcat provides the following features e Support for 127 partitions per disk although there is theoretically support for 65 535 e Support for 15 drives A to O e Support for sector sizes of 128 256 and 512 bytes e Partition locking and deactivation e Dynamic mounting and un mounting of partitions e Parti
9. Phaeron for the Altirra emulator with its SIDE support and for his additional insights into the IDE protocol e Lewis for beta testing e Everyone else who helped make this great little project a success Finally bugs in software errors in documentation and feature requests should be reported to fic atari8 co uk Jonathan Halliday FJC 8 November 2011 18
10. he first item on the disk menu FDISK vi SPartaDdDoOsS x APT Partition Editor cc 2616 26011 by FJC fjceatari co uk Developed with MADS and WUDSWN Arrow keys to move Return to select The next window to open will display the physical disk s that the driver has previously detected Use the cursor keys to highlight the disk you wish to partition and press lt Return gt APT Partition Editor and Utilities Select disk EEN GENERIC If the disk hasn t already been prepared FDISK will then ask you to specify the amount of space you wish to allocate for the Atari partitions You ll also have the chance to create an optional but recommended FAT32 partition which can be used with the SIDE loader UnPartiationed media Partition now Cyrn Respond Y to Partition now y n to prepare the card NOTE all existing information on the card will be lost so please use this option with care FDISK obliterates the existing boot sector or MBR partition table You ll then get the chance to review the geometry of the hard disk APT Partition Editor and Utilities Disk Geometry GENERIC IDE Device 1 Disk sectors 32724166 Bytes sector 312 Disk Capacity 255 ME Just press any key to advance from this screen FDISK will then ask whether you require a FAT32 partition on the disk always the first on the physical disk If you select Y the FAT32 partition will occupy all the space
11. ill cause partition with ID 2 to be permanently mounted on drive C the change will be written to the partition table on disk If there was already a partition mounted on drive C it will no longer be attached to any drive letter The AW switch causes a mount operation to be persistent meaning the partition will be permanently assigned to the drive number you specify until you change it in FDISK or by using MOUNT again with the AW switch You should exercise care when using MOUNT Some points to note Be careful not to un mount the drive containing your applications and in particular the MOUNT command itself otherwise you wont be able to get them back If mount is on the SDX CAR device the default arrangement this risk is avoided The same partition cannot be mounted on more than one drive letter at the same time You must un mount a partition before you can re mount it on a different drive letter Mounting and unmounting drives has no effect on the partition table on disk unless the AW switch is included You can currently access up to 127 partitions on a disk Mounting a partition on a drive letter already associated with another partition will cause the other partition to go offline and be replaced by the newly mounted one Mounting a different partition to a drive letter effectively causes SDX to detect a disk change Using SDX s batch file facility one may construct dynamically allocated arrays of partitions if
12. lar manner to the MOUNT command found in Linux Partitions can be addressed either by partition ID or partition name the partition ID is the same as the sequence number in the left column of the FDISK partition editor MOUNT takes several switches and arguments which you can display by typing MOUNT To mount a partition and attach it to a given drive letter you can either address the partition by its ID or by its name To quickly establish the ID of a given partition you can type MOUNT L device_num This command will display a list of to all the partitions on a physical disk device_num is an optional number and should be 1 for the master device and 2 for the slave device If no device number is given the program will first list the partitions on the master device and will then attempt to list the partitions on the slave device If there s no slave device on the system as is always the case with the SIDE interface the program will just exit after listing the partitions on the master MOUNT s partition list is different to that of FDISK with the L switch While FDISK faithfully lists the drive assignments according to those found in the partition table on disk MOUNT displays the drive numbers currently assigned to partitions and flags with an asterisk those partitions whose drive number assignments have been changed or removed since the last time the computer was booted or the partition table was written to disk with
13. likely that after initialising a card and using it you ll want to add or remove partitions at a later date Just start FDISK again select the IDE disk and you ll see the partition table in the editor You can continue to add partitions or change the size of existing ones Note however that deleting or resizing existing partitions will almost certainly results in data loss if they already contain a filing system i e they are formatted and there are files and folders on the partition For this reason FDISK asks you repeatedly if you are sure you wish to write changes to the disk While editing the partition table you may decide that you wish to discard all the changes you have made since the table was read from the disk You can accomplish this with Partition gt Undo all although the result is identical to simply closing the disk choosing NOT to save changes and then opening the disk again lf you have named partitions you may find it helpful to list the partition table by name You can do this by choosing View gt Show names which simply toggles the partition name view You can still create edit and delete partitions in name view Table Import Export is a useful facility you can use to simplify the creation of similar partitioning structures on many disks With an existing partition table open in the editor select Disk gt Export table and a file selector will be displayed APT Partition Editor and Utilities Partition View Help
14. rv BP Smt tr Edit Size C Siz A B Set Drive Unallocated Set BPS Edit Name Bootable Read Only Active Delete Properties T gt DVeSproazvcm Erase all Undo all gt N Partition name BOOT PARTITION B61 127 Partitions 196608 Free secs arrow keys to move Return to select You can also just press the letter C without opening any menus note that all these keyboard shortcuts are shown on the pull down menus In any case a numeric input field will open up in the first empty entry in the partition table waiting for you to specify the size of the partition in sectors The default is 65535 sectors and if you want to accept this value just press lt Return gt otherwise you can edit the value using the usual editing controls After you press lt Return gt the new entry will appear in the table will appear and the free space following it will shrink accordingly APT Partition Editor and Utilities With the new partition highlighted you may then specify a drive letter either by pressing V or selecting Set Drive from the partition menu You ll get a drop down list box Just select the drive letter you want and press lt Return gt note that if the partition already has a drive letter this is shown near the top of the list and is already highlighted You can also remove the drive letter by choosing the selection Partition View Help oi 2 65535 1966686 F ee iamiuki t
15. table the partition will not be automatically mounted after a reboot If we were to type MOUNT U C at this stage the C drive would also be unmounted but the difference is since partition 1 has been permanently allocated drive letter C the next time the partition table is re read into the computer s memory either with lt ShifttReset gt or on the next reboot drive C will still be online OK back to the command prompt Now lets mount partition 3 again but this time by its name Type MOUNT G partition name substitute partition name with the name you assigned partition two in FDISK and dont include the square brackets the name may contain spaces MOUNT will scan all devices master and slave if present for the named partition note that it s therefore advisable to avoid partitions with the same name on the master and slave drives since both are always searched for the partition with the specified name If the named partition is found it will be mounted on the specified drive letter If you now type MOUNT L you ll see the partition shows up in the partition list as drive G and it has an asterisk next to it Any partition which was previously assigned as drive G will now be unmounted it will have no drive letter and will also be flagged with an asterisk You can also make the changes permanent when mounting a partition For example MOUNT W N C 2 15 APT Partition Editor and Utilities This w
16. th drive letter C and set the boot flag Here s a typical partition table with three quad density partitions assigned to drives C D and E Drive C is the boot drive Partition View Help e Drv BPS aAtr C 512 A B D 512 Aa E 312 ia Unallocated Partition name Cunnamedd B8O8S 1I2Z Partitions 65536 Free secs Press lt Esc gt for menu When you have the partition table the way you want it choose Disk gt Write Table or press lt Ctrl W gt FDISK makes absolutely sure you want to commit the changes to disk After writing the changes you may close the partition table with Disk gt Close Disk Flee ee eel View Help Properties Size Drv BPS aAtr Write tab oD C Siz A B Export table 26608 Unallocated Import table Close disk AC Exit Partition name BOOT PARTITION O681 127 Partitions 1966606 Free secs arrow keys to move Return to select APT Partition Editor and Utilities Finally to exit FDISK and return to the SDX command prompt chose Disk gt Exit The partition table will be automatically refreshed from the hard disk and the partitions you have created will immediately become available You must then format them with the SDX disk formatter type FORMAT at the command prompt The illustration below shows the SIDE driver booting under SpartaDOS X with a fully partitioned hard disk APT Partition Editor and Utilities Partition Table Maintenance It s
17. tion naming Software may be supplied on an ATR disk image or on the CAR device in an SDX ROM distribution In either case the following programs are provided e FDISK COM partition editor on support disk e PARTINFO COM quick partition display utility e DEVINFO COM physical disk info tool written by KMK e MOUNT COM dynamic partition management utility e HDDINFO COM provides basic information about physical disks APT Partition Editor and Utilities Installation and Disk Partitioning Before using a disk it must first be initialized Attach the hard disk to the interface connect the interface to the Atari and power on the machine SpartaDOS X will boot and the APT BIOS will report Invalid partition table This means the hard disk has not been initialized or that there was an error reading the partition table Type FDISK at the command prompt and the partition editor will load and display the following screen About FDISK v1 9 SPartaDdDoOsS x APT Partition Editor cc 2616 2611 by FJC fjiceatari co uk Developed with MADS and WUDSWN Arrow keys to move Return gt to select FDISK is simple to use it is navigated using the keyboard largely via the Esc Return and the cursor keys You ll note that the Disk menu is already highlighted on the menu bar at the top of the screen Press lt Return gt to open the menu then choose Open disk just press lt Return gt again since it is t
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