Hard Disk Optimiser V1.01 ------------------------- Hard Disk Optimiser (HD_OPT) is a (pretty quick) program for reorganising your hard disk partitions by unfragmenting files and moving free space areas to the end of the partition. The program also allows the user to decide in what order the files will be stored and to sort the directory entries. -**- This program is considered FREEWARE and may be copied freely providing the following conditions are met; 1) This manual is included unaltered with every distributed copy of HD_OPT. 2) No fee is charged for the copy without the author's prior written consent, with the sole exception of duplication costs for public domain and shareware libraries. 3) The program or this manual is not included with any commercial product or publication of any kind without the author's prior written consent. Whilst every care has been taken in developing this product the author makes no warranties of any kind with respect to this manual or the HD_OPT program. Any damage or loss incurred accidentally or otherwise by this program or by the use of this program is solely the responsibility of the user. This program alters your hard disk directly. Should a power-cut or machine crash happen during optimisation then it is likely that all data on your partition will be lost. It is heartily recommended that you BACKUP YOUR HARD DISK before using this program. If you have a problem with this program then ** PLEASE ** let me know - you could save someone else a lot of hassle! I am always happy to receive comments and suggestions with respect to this product, and I can be contacted at this address; Jon Marshall 28 Holbrook Road Stratford London E15 3EA England ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Introduction ============ Constant use of a hard disk partition generally leads to a loss in performance. Files and folders are moved, copied, deleted and expanded - resulting in gaps of unused space and portions of files and folders scattered across the partition. This is called fragmentation and is undesirable for two reasons; 1) If portions of a file are stored in widely separated areas of a disk then access to that file will be slowed. You will see this effect most on disk intensive programs. 2) If you ever need to recover data from a deleted file, then you will find it much easier if all of the file is located in one position. HD_OPT unfragments your hard disk by moving each file to a contiguous area (optionally storing files from the same folder together) and placing all unused areas at the end of the disk. This is a standard GEM program which can be started in he usual fashion. The DISK Menu ============= Change current drive: This allows you to change the current drive. You must select choose a drive before starting any operation. Analyse disk: This gives information on the current drive. Points to note are: Fragmented chains - Number of files and directory lists which are fragmented. Ideally this should be 0. Free Space areas - Number of non-contiguous free space areas on the partition. Ideally this should be 1. Crosslinked/lost clusters & unmatched FATs - Each disk has several different tables for storing information and sometimes they can get out of step with each other. Should the program find such problems an option will be presented to fix them though this IS NOT IMPLEMENTED on current versions of HD_OPT!! I advise you to use a program such as DLII to fix the problems. You will not be able to sort the disk directories or unfragment a partition if it contains crosslinked or lost clusters or unmatched FATs. Directory sort: This will sort the order of the file entries in each directory listing and is only of real use when a listing is required from a shell which cannot sort the entries (i.e. like the Desktop can). Note that if an AUTO folder is present it too will be sorted - your auto programs will then run in a different order. The type of sort and the sort order must first be selected from the OPTIONS menu. Unfragment: If a directory sort order has been selected from the OPTIONS menu then your directories will be sorted first. The program will then reorganise your partition in the manner described under the explanation of the OPTIONS menu. Whilst unfragmenting a dialog box is displayed showing the current file being processed and the percentage of the partition that is unfragmented. Note that this figure does not necessarily represent the amount of work done but the amount that the drive has been unfragmented. Hence for a partially optimised drive this figure may start at 50% and end at 60% You may press 'UNDO' to safely terminate the operation, leaving your partition only partially unfragmented. The OPTIONS Menu ================ Directory sort by: Allows you to change directory sort to Name, Extension, Time, file size or none (default). Sort order: Choose between ascending and descending. Disk order: This allows you to choose one of three different ways in which the files are physically stored on the disk. No Ordering: The files are stored in the same order as they are now, but unfragmented. This is the quickest option and is recommended for disks where a lot of changes occur, such as partitions with a lot of source code. Folder only: Each folder is placed at the start of the disk, followed by all files grouped together by folder. Since most disk access is centred on a single folder, this decreases the distance that the disk heads will need to move when accessing different files. This option is the one that I recommend you use. Folder and Prg: Each folder is placed at the start of the disk, followed by each PRG and RSC file grouped together by folder, followed by all other files grouped together by folder. If you have a partition with a lot of PRG and RSC files that never change, then using this option will decrease the amount of time to unfragment that partition in the future. Notes on Usage ============== HD_OPT changes your hard disk using lowlevel OS routines - all normal file routines are by-passed - this means that the program should be used only on standard TOS partitions. Should the program be terminated unexpectedly while reorganising a hard disk partition, for instance by a power cut or machine crash, then it is highly likely that all data on that partition will be lost. It is recommended you backup your partitions before using this program. This program expects sole access to a disk drive while unfragmenting. Any desk accessories or resident programs which access the disk drive in the 'background' must not be used in conjunction with this program. HD_OPT is quite greedy with memory. I have successfully tested a 13MB partition on a 520ST, but a partition greater than 16MBs would probably require 1 Meg of memory. Should a disk error occur during reorganising then the program will do it's best to leave the partition in a usable state, but I would advise you to check the data integrity before using the partition again. Should you have deleted data on your disk that you wish to recover, then reogranising your hard disk first will practically zero your chances of recovering that data.