		      ͻ
		          EFDISK v2.2 DOCUMENTATION    
		          (C) Nagy Daniel 05-30-97     
		      ͼ

Ŀ
 CONTENTS 


		Disclaimer............................ 1

                Copyright............................. 2

		Introduction.......................... 3

		Features.............................. 4

		Requirements.......................... 5

		Usage (IMPORTANT!).................... 6

                Partition types....................... 7

		History............................... 8

		Technical information................. 9

		Contact, about the author............ 10


Ŀ
 DISCLAIMER  1 


        Using this program comes without any warranty. The author
        and distributors will not accept responsibility for any
        damage incurred directly or indirectly through use of this
        program.
        Use at your own risk!

Ŀ
 COPYRIGHT  2 


        This program is copyright (c) Nagy Dniel.
        This program is a part of the MasterBooter package. Distributing it
        separately is not allowed. Distribute the whole unmodified shareware
        package only!
        For other distributing information see the MasterBooter
        documentation.

Ŀ
 INTRODUCTION  3 


        EFDISK (Extended FDISK) is a disk partitioning program. With EFDISK
        you can create or modify primary partitions of your harddisks.
        EFDISK supports many partition types, howewer you cannot make
        DOS logical drives and extended partitions with it. The original
        FDISK program doesn't allow you to create more than one primary
        partition. EFDISK does, therefore it's a powerful tool to help
        installing more operating systems in your PC.
        EFDISK is a support program of MasterBooter.

Ŀ
 FEATURES  4 


        - Displaying partition information of all drives in your system

        - Creating or editing partitions

        - Compatibility with all partition types, including:
             FAT12, 16, 32 (DOS, Windows, Windows95/97, OS/2)
             Hidden FAT
             HPFS (OS/2)
             Minix (Linux)
             Ext2FS (Linux)
             Linux swap (Linux)
             NTFS (Windows NT)

        - Easy-to-use user interface

        - Usable via command line options (use /? option for help)

Ŀ
 REQUIREMENTS  5 


     - 80286 processor or up
     - MS-DOS or compatible operating system
     - At least one harddisk
     - Keyboard
     - VGA adapter

Ŀ
 USAGE  6 


     Note: Playing with partitions is a risky job! Use this program only
           if you know what you're doing!

     1) Installation

        You can copy these files (this docs and the executables) together
        wherever you like. This program doesn't need any additional
        settings. Just run it and have fun.

     2) Usage information

          For safety:
          0) BACK UP ALL IMPORTANT DATA!
          1) Make a system disk by typing: 'format a: /s'
          2) Run the program MRESCUE.COM. Choose the 'Create rescue disk'
             option. It will copy important information about your disks
             and the MRESCUE.COM itself to floppy, so you can restore your
             previous configuration later if necessary.
          3) Now you can safely run EFDISK. If anything goes wrong, boot
             from the floppy you've just created, run MRESCUE.COM and
             choose 'Restore original configuration'.
             This will reset all modifications.
             Send me a mail if something is not working, and write
             all steps you've done unless I won't be able to correct the
             problem. Thank You!

        Before running EFDISK quit all multitasking environments
        (ie. Windows or OS/2 DOS box) and run plain DOS, because these
        operating systems won't let programs to modify the Master Boot
        Record.

        When executing, EFDISK will gather information about your disks and
        partitions. Then you will be provided a list of all partitions of
        all disks and their parameters. From this list you can choose the
        partition entry you want to change.
        In the upper right window, the program shows the number of cylinders,
        heads and sectors of each harddisk.

        Now you can move the highlight with the up/down arrow keys.
        Press ENTER to change the parameters of the highlighted partition.
        EFDISK will ask several questions now.
        These are:
        - The hexadecimal type ID of the partition. EFDISK will show you
          the most common types and IDs. Type the value, and press ENTER.
          Check out section 7 in this documentation for more types.
        - Starting cylinder number of partition (the minimum is 0).
          If the previous partition is ending on cylinder 'x' then set
          this to 'x+1'. This number is decimal. Type and press ENTER.
        - Ending cylinder number of partition. EFDISK will show you the
          maximum cylinder number available for the actual harddisk.
          This number is also decimal. Type and press ENTER.

        The number of heads and sectors per track vaules are determined
        automatically for each disk, you don't have to mess with them.

        Pressing SPACE will activate the highlighted partition, pressing DEL
        will clear the whole highlighted entry.

        Pressing 'h' over a FAT partition will cause hiding/unhiding it.
        This can be important if OS/2 is used, or if you don't want Win95
        to recognize other primary DOS partitions.

        After preparing all partition entries, press F10 to save the new
        partition table to disk.

!!   Usage note: - EFDISK doesn't check for partition errors! It's not an
!!                 'intelligent' program. You have total freedom to set all
!!                 parameters, even if they are incorrect or redundant!
                
     3) Command line usage

        Since v2.1 EFDISK can be used with command line options. With
        command line options, one can create, delete and activate partitions,
        and hide/unhide primary FAT partitions. This can be very useful for
        system administrators, hardware/software stores or schools.
        Note that the changes will take effect only after a reboot.

        If there was an error, then the return value is 1, else 0.

        The syntax is:
        efdisk command partition_number [harddisk_number]

        The commands are:
        /create type starting_cylinder ending_cylinder - to create
        /delete                                        - to delete
        /delall                                        - to delete all
        /activate                                      - to activate
        /hide                                          - to hide FAT
        /unhide                                        - to unhide FAT
        /?                                             - to get help

        - The type is hexadecimal, the cylinders are decimal numbers
        - Partition number is a number from 1 to 4. Only one partition number
          is allowed per command (do not use this parameter for delall command)
        - Disk number is a number from 1 to 4. If omitted, the default is 1.
          Only one disk number is allowed per command

        Examples:
        - To create a primary BIGDOS partition (type 6) with starting
          cylinder 12, ending cylinder 265 in the 3rd partition entry on
          the 2nd harddisk, type:
          efdisk /create 6 12 265 3 2
        - To delete the 2nd partition on the 1st harddisk, type:
          efdisk /delete 2   (note that the disk number can be omitted if 1)
        - To delete all partitions on the 3rd harddisk, type:
          efdisk /delall 3
        - To hide the 4th partition (must be FAT) on the 1st harddisk type:
          efdisk /hide 4

     4) Notes about partitioning

        - If there's data in the other partitions of your harddisk than
          the partitions you'll change then create backups of your
          partition tables with MRESCUE for safety.
        - You can have only one active partition in your harddisk's
          partition table. If you activate a artition, EFDISK will
          automatically clear the other partition's 'active' flag.
        - There's no point to activate extended partitions
        - hiding/unhiding works only with primary FAT partitions
!!      - Don't use EFDISK to resize or move such existing partitions that
!!        contains data you need! Once you alter an entry (except activating
!!        or hiding/unhiding it) the data in that partition will be lost!


Ŀ
 PARTITION TYPES  7 


        These are the currently known partition types. These values are
        from Ralph Brown's interrupt list. (A big thanks goes to him for
        maintaining that impressive documentation!)

        ID      Name
              
        00h     empty
        01h     DOS 12-bit FAT
        02h     XENIX root file system
        03h     XENIX /usr file system (obsolete)
        04h     DOS 16-bit FAT (up to 32M)
        05h     DOS 3.3+ extended partition
        06h     DOS 3.31+ Large File System (16-bit FAT, over 32M)
        07h     QNX
        07h     OS/2 HPFS
        07h     Windows NT NTFS
        07h     Advanced Unix
        08h     OS/2 (v1.0-1.3 only)
        08h     AIX bootable partition, SplitDrive
        08h     Commodore DOS
        08h     DELL partition spanning multiple drives
        09h     AIX data partition
        09h     Coherent filesystem
        0Ah     OS/2 Boot Manager
        0Ah     OPUS
        0Ah     Coherent swap partition
        0Bh     Windows 95 with 32-bit FAT
        0Ch     Windows 95 with 32-bit FAT (using LBA-mode INT 13 extensions)
        0Eh     LBA VFAT (same as 06h but using LBA-mode INT 13)
        0Fh     LBA VFAT (same as 05h but using LBA-mode INT 13)
        10h     OPUS
        11h     OS/2 Boot Manager hidden 12-bit FAT partition
        12h     Compaq Diagnostics partition
        14h     (using Novell DOS 7.0 FDISK to delete Linux Native part)
        14h     OS/2 Boot Manager hidden sub-32M 16-bit FAT partition
        16h     OS/2 Boot Manager hidden over-32M 16-bit FAT partition
        17h     OS/2 Boot Manager hidden HPFS partition
        18h     AST special Windows swap file
        1Bh     Hidden Windows 95 with 32-bit FAT (not official!)
        21h     officially listed as reserved
        23h     officially listed as reserved
        24h     NEC MS-DOS 3.x
        26h     officially listed as reserved
        31h     officially listed as reserved
        33h     officially listed as reserved
        34h     officially listed as reserved
        36h     officially listed as reserved
        38h     Theos
        3Ch     PowerQuest PartitionMagic recovery partition
        40h     VENIX 80286
        41h     Personal RISC Boot
        42h     SFS (Secure File System) by Peter Gutmann
        50h     OnTrack Disk Manager, read-only partition
        51h     OnTrack Disk Manager, read/write partition
        51h     NOVEL
        52h     CP/M
        52h     Microport System V/386
        53h     OnTrack Disk Manager, write-only partition???
        54h     OnTrack Disk Manager (DDO)
        56h     GoldenBow VFeature
        61h     SpeedStor
        63h     Unix SysV/386, 386/ix
        63h     Mach, MtXinu BSD 4.3 on Mach
        63h     GNU HURD
        64h     Novell NetWare 286
        65h     Novell NetWare (3.11)
        67h     Novell
        68h     Novell
        69h     Novell
        70h     DiskSecure Multi-Boot
        71h     officially listed as reserved
        73h     officially listed as reserved
        74h     officially listed as reserved
        75h     PC/IX
        76h     officially listed as reserved
        80h     Minix v1.1 - 1.4a
        81h     Minix v1.4b+
        81h     Linux
        81h     Mitac Advanced Disk Manager
        82h     Linux Swap partition
        82h     Prime
        83h     Linux native file system (ext2fs/xiafs)
        84h     OS/2-renumbered type 04h partition (hiding DOS C: drive)
        86h     officially listed as reserved
        87h     HPFS Fault-Tolerant mirrored partition
        93h     Amoeba file system
        94h     Amoeba bad block table
        A1h     officially listed as reserved
        A3h     officially listed as reserved
        A4h     officially listed as reserved
        A5h     FreeBSD, BSD/386
        A6h     officially listed as reserved
        B1h     officially listed as reserved
        B3h     officially listed as reserved
        B4h     officially listed as reserved
        B6h     officially listed as reserved
        B7h     BSDI file system (secondarily swap)
        B8h     BSDI swap partition (secondarily file system)
        C1h     DR DOS 6.0 LOGIN.EXE-secured 12-bit FAT partition
        C4h     DR DOS 6.0 LOGIN.EXE-secured 16-bit FAT partition
        C6h     DR DOS 6.0 LOGIN.EXE-secured Huge partition
        C7h     Syrinx Boot
        D8h     CP/M-86
        DBh     CP/M, Concurrent CP/M, Concurrent DOS
        DBh     CTOS (Convergent Technologies OS)
        E1h     SpeedStor 12-bit FAT extended partition
        E3h     DOS read-only
        E3h     Storage Dimensions
        E4h     SpeedStor 16-bit FAT extended partition
        E5h     officially listed as reserved
        E6h     officially listed as reserved
        F1h     Storage Dimensions
        F2h     DOS 3.3+ secondary partition
        F3h     officially listed as reserved
        F4h     SpeedStor
        F4h     Storage Dimensions
        F6h     officially listed as reserved
        FEh     LANstep
        FEh     IBM PS/2 IML
        FFh     Xenix bad block table

Ŀ
 HISTORY  8 


        Version:

        1.1 - First official release in the MasterBooter package

        1.2 - If the starting cylinder of a partition was 0, then the
                'relative starting sector' and 'number of sectors' value
                in the partition table were incorrect. Now they're correct

        1.3 - Fixed a small bug, that sometimes caused incorrect 'number
                of sectors' value

        1.4 - Now the 'Space' key can be used to activate a partition,
                so no need to retype all parameters
              With large hard drives, sometimes the partition sizes were
                incorrect. Now they are always correct

        1.5 - Added partition deleting. Just press DEL over a partition.
                Setting all partition parameters to zero is the same
              Now it is possible to set a partition active on the slave disk.
                One partition per disk can be made active. This is very
                useful when partitioning a slave disk, which will be used as
                master in an other PC

        2.0 - Added 'h' key to hide/unhide a FAT partition

        2.1 - Now supporting up to four harddisks
              Fixed a bug which caused incompatibility with some SCSI disks
              After writing the new Master Boot Record, pressing ESC will
                quit to DOS (doesn't reboot)
              Added command line options for creating, deleting, activating
                and hiding partitions (use the /? option for more information)

        2.2 - Fixed a small bug, which occured at entering the partition ID
              Added support for hiding/unhiding FAT32
              Added support for FreeBSD
              The logical characteristics of the harddisks are shown
                in the upper right window

Ŀ
 TECHNICAL INFORMATION  9 


        General information:
        

        A harddisk can contain up to four primary partitions. The partition
        table (which resides in the very first sector of your harddisk)
        describes the type, bootability and starting/ending cylinder number
        of the partitions. In bootable partitions, the first sector is
        always the so called 'boot sector' which contains a small OS loader.
        In these partitions you can install any operating system in theory.
        But in the real world some operating systems don't allow you to
        create more than one primary partition, or to boot another operating
        system. So creating multiple primary partitions and choosing the
        operating system at boot time was quite difficult.
        That's why I wrote EFDISK and MasterBooter.

        About FAT types:
        

        There are four types of FAT (File Allocation Table).

        1: FAT12 is now obsolote, used on floppy disks only
        2: FAT16 is the next step. It can be used if a DOS partition
           is smaller than 32Mb.
        3: BIGDOS is also a 16-bit type, but allows larger partition sizes.
           Plain DOS, Windows95 and OS/2 (if installed in FAT) use this
           type nowadays. The maximum partition size is 2Gb.
        4: FAT32 is the newest, it is introduced in Windows95 OEM Service
           Release 2. It allows really big partition sizes, but it's quite
           incompatible with the older types.

Ŀ
 CONTACT  10 


        If you have any problems, questions or suggestions you can
        contact me through snail mail or e-mail.
        Bug reports, ideas also welcomed!

        Currently I'm a student at the University of Veszprem,
        department of Information Technology. I'm 23 (in 1997).

        Postal address:                      Internet E-mail address:
                               
        Nagy Daniel                          nagyd@almos.vein.hu
        2011 Budakalasz
        Ciklamen u. 19                       WWW homepage:
        HUNGARY                              
                                             http://www.vein.hu/~nagyd
        Fax: (36) 26 340-472
