         Preliminary Information for Beta Testers  2/27/90
         -------------------------------------------------

Here is a brief one for our new desk accessory.  And I thought it would all be
obvious.

ICD Hard Disk Accessory

ICD.ACC is a hard disk partition management tool, which works in conjunction
with the GEM desktop.  It will read your hard drive volume names and put them
in the drive icons.  It also provides valuable partition information and 
allows you to swap, rename, change partition type, enable and disable active
partitions, and switch the write verify function.  Any changes made will be
reflected in your GEM drive icons.

DESKTOP.ACC does NOT work with NEODESK. Maybe we can do this later.

DESKTOP.ACC works fine with MultiDesk, from Codehead Software, as long as
you are running MULTIDSK as an ACC.  If you are running it as a PRG, there
do appear to be some slight glitches in the file selector, else it works
OK.

Swapping is performed in the Logical Drives window.  Most of the other
functions are accomplished in the Available Partitions window.  To swap
click on any drive letter or partition name in this window.  Drag the name
to the place in the logical boot order where you want it, and release.  If
you get the flat hand staying up, clicking anywhere outside of the Logical
drives window will get out of swap mode.

To revert to "pristine" logical drive order, click on Unswap.  This makes
your first partition C, next D, etc.

To save your swap order permanently, click on Save.  This will write the
swap order into ICDBOOT.SYS.  Next time you boot, you will be using the
new swap order.  If you swap Drive C, you will be asked if you want to
save a copy of your DESKTOP.INF file on the new C.  This is usually a good
idea.  You will also want to make sure the ACC and its RSC reside on the
new drive C, else when you reboot you will have to find them and copy them
over to be able to swap back.  If you have swapped any drives corresponding
to open windows in your DESKTOP.INF file, you will be asked to update the
DESKTOP.INF.  This is also a good idea, else you will come up without your
windows open.

When DESKTOP.ACC terminates, the new swap order will be reflected in the
drive icons, also any open windows affected by the new swap order will be
changed.

To enable or disable active partitions, click on the appropriate line under the
ON column.  Up to 14 partitions may be enabled at any given time.  You can have
a total of 64 partitions for a physical hard drive (LUN) with a maximum total
of 128 partitions in the system.

To name or rename a partition, click on any GEM or BGM partition name in
the Available Partitions window.  To get out of rename mode, click anywhere
else.  You can only edit (name/rename) GEM and BGM volume names.  The ACC
has no way of knowing how non-GEM partitions keep their volume names, hence
you can't edit these.

Bear in mind, your volume names may be upper or lower case, with spaces.
If you do a Show Info on the partition, the volume name is truncated at
the first space.

To turn on the write verify TEMPORARILY click on the On or Off button as
desired.  This is the same function provided by our old VERIFY.ACC, and does
not affect the Write Verify configuration in ICDBOOT.  It DOES affect the
verify on your floppy disk drives, so you should probably leave it On most
of the time.  The verify does slow down file transfers, however it is usually
worth the extra time to insure good data.

You MUST finalize any actions undertaken here by clicking on OK or Reboot.
If you click on Cancel, we will undo what we can.

                                      ICD, Inc.

We have tested this accessory thoroughly and believe it to be relatively
free from problems.  However under no circumstances will ICD, Inc. be held
responsible for any damage to your hard drives.


