This is the title-bar of the OS/2 window, here with a demo title.
It includes the operating system level controls for the window like
the system-menu, maximize, minimize and close and the rollup-button
created by the Object-Desktop add-on product.
The title-bar and the rest of the window-frame are the only OS-specific
parts in this display. The window interior is the same on the OS/2, DOS
and Windows-NT versions.
Of course DFSee can be run in full-screen sessions as well, this will usualy
speed-up the display too.
The command executed in this screenshot is part of the MAP#PART multiple
command, as issued automatically at startup when no
parameters are given.
It results in the pseudo-graphic display of all physical disks with
the partition on each of those disks.
All commands are covered in the documentation files
wich are plain ASCII and rather large. Use the search
capabilities of your text-editor/browser to search for specific topics.
You can checkout the on-line version of the documentation right here:
This is the number of physical disks reported by the operating system.
Usualy this will match the number of real disks present in your system,
but there are several of other possibilities like:
A RAID disk-subsystem will cause the operating system to see each
of its defined logical volumes as a separate physical disk
Some special device-drivers on OS/2 or Windows-NT will present another
device or a partition on a physical disk as a separate physical disk,
probably with some added functionality or normally unsuported filesystems.
This is the geometry of the disk, as reported to DFSee by the standard
interfaces. For DFSDOS this might not always reflect the actual situation
when very large disks are used (INT-13 limitation at 1024 cylinders)
Reported are the number of:
Cylinders, this is the number of seperate tracks on each surface used
Heads, the number of used surfaces, range 0 .. 255
Sectors, the number of sectors in each track, range 1 .. 63
Partition Warnings
The geometry/size lines can be followed by several lines with WARNING messages
about specific partitions. They deal with INT-13 limits, boundary errors
and other possible inconsitenties in the partition tables.
Note that using a wrong geometry will usualy result in a lot of warnings
being issued, checking the geometry is therefore one of the first things
to do when a partition-scheme doesn't seem to be healthy.
Extended Int-13
When extended INT-13 support is available, this line will be preceded
by a similar line showing the physical geometry as reported
by that interface. This is usualy on modern PC-systems that implement this
support in their on-board BIOS for large EIDE disks.
It could be implemented by SCSI BIOS's too, but sofar I have only seen
a single system (RAID-5 controller) that actualy used it.
When running DFSDOS inside a Windows-9x dosbox, INT-13 support is also
reported, but this is a virtual implementation inside the dosbox and might
not reflect the actual geometry of the physical disk.
The size of the disk, as calculated from the geometry on the same line,
is presented as:
a hexa-decimal value representing the number of sectors
a decimal value being the number of megabytes
If the used geometry is not correct, limitted by BIOS INT-13 or
changed by a manual diskgeo command, the size
corresponds to this geometry, not the actual size of the disk.
This is the start of the pseudo-graphical display for physical disks.
Each disk starts with a Master Boot Record (MBR) at sector 0.
It contains:
A very small boot-program that is called by the BIOS when the system
is started or re-booted. This will read the partition table and transfer
control to the Boot Sector for the active partition.
The base partition table, containing up to 4 partition entries, with
16 bytes of information containing either:
A definition for a primary partition
A definition for an extended partition
The extended partition functions as a container for logical volumes wich
form a linked list of Extended Boot Records (EBR) each with
its own partition table defining this particular logical volume and a
link to the next one.
Empty, usualy the entry contains all zeroes in this case
The table can hold upto 4 entries, of wich only one can be an extended
partition.
A unique Boot Sector Signature with hexadecimal value 0x55aa
This area is the extended-partition that functions as a container
for logical volumes. For most operating systems all logical volumes
must be in one contigious area.
Inside the container, each logical volume is preceded by its
own Extended Boot Record.
This is the first logical volume, driveletter D:, formatted with
the FAT filesystem. Because it is very small, the formatting uses 12-bit
FAT entries, exactly like it would have for diskettes.
The partition is mainly used for testing DFSee functions :-)
This contains IBM's OS/2 Boot Manager wich is used to select between
the Windows-95 and OS/2 environments on this laptop.
It is located at the end of the disk to have minimal impact
on the original Windows environment on this machine.
This colums indicates the identification number for a partition
and/or a freespace area. Freespace areas share the same Id with the
partition that follows, except for the last one on every physical disk
wich have there own unique Id.
The Id's are used to identify any particular partition or freespace area
in the commands that operate on them.
This is the disk-number for the physical disk containing this partition
or freespace area. Because the table is sorted in ascending order on
disk-number and start-sector on the disk, all partitions on the same disk
will be on subsequent lines.
When there is more than one physical disk, there is a separation line between
each one to make the different disks stand out.
This column contains a status-indicator and the drive-letter for the
volume, when one is assigned.
There are three methods by wich the drive-letters shown in DFSee are
determined:
By a matching algorithm that compares the boot-sectors for each
drive-letter reported by the operating system with the boot-sectors
found in each defined partition. This usualy yields the same drive-letters
as used by the currently active operating system.
Note that this might give different results under different operating
systems because the different types of partitions are not regognized
by each. Good old DOS will only recognize FAT12 en FAT16 when no special
utilities are used.
This is the default method when not in de FDISK mode.
By a DFSee implementation of the Industry standard method
of drive-letter assignment, wich roughly means the following steps:
Start with the first available drive-letter, being C
Assign the next available drive-letter to the active primary
partition on each physical non-removable disk.
Assign the next available drive-letter to each of the logical partitions
on each disk. (wich usualy means more than one drive-letter per disk)
Repeat the previous two steps for each removable disk (JAZ, ZIP, Syquest...)
This method is the default in FDISK mode, unless LVM-info is available.
using this method can be forced by specifying a double exclamation-sign as
a parameter to the part command as in: part !!
By interpreting the Logical Volume Manager (LVM) information
stored close to each boot-sector on an OS/2 Warp-server
for e-business system (Codenamed Aurora)
This method is used whenever valid LVM-info is detected on the disk(s)
The status indicator is an optional character in an highlighted color that
precedes the drive letter, the following characters are used:
>
for the active partition (BIOS bootable)
}
active partition, but not on first disk
!
active partition, but with a bad bootsector (not formatted)
*
for partitions bootable by the installed Boot Manager
-
bootable by Boot Manager, but with a bad bootsector
This is an identification for the Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) as
recorded in the boot-record. It usualy identifies the used operating system
and sometimes its version as well.
This is the Label as displayed by a DIR command in
most operating systems. It is usualy stored in the boot-record, or (FAT) as
a special entry in the Root-directory of the filesystem.
For BootManager partitions the label is the BootManager name for the
partition that was booted last.
This is the name registred with OS/2 BootManager for this partition.
This name will be used on the BootManager menu to select a partition to start.
When valid LVM information is found, this column will contain both the name
for the physical partition and the name of the volume
that this partition is assigned to (max 20 characters each).
The column will be expanded in width when the current screen/window width
allows it.
The partition line for the hybernation partition of the
HP Omnibook. It is used to save the memory-contents to disk
when suspending operation.
It contains a small header part, followed by a memory-dump.
The returncode for the last executed command is displayed here to signal
success or failure. In case of failure, some explanation is usualy
displayed preceeding the prompt line.
The drive-letter for the selected partition if any, or -- when
no partition is currently selected, or when the selected partition
has no drive-letter assigned.
This the hexadecimal representation of the sectornumber that will be
displayed or interpreted when the command u is given.
This value will be set by commands where appropriate, usualy pointing
to entities higher up in the filesystem hierarchy.
As an example, this can be the directory for an HPFS Fnode, or the
parent-MFT for an NTFS MFT record.
This the hexadecimal representation of the sectornumber that will be
displayed or interpreted when the command x is given.
This value will be set by commands where appropriate, pointing
to entities related to the currently displayed one.
As an example, this can be the LVM info for a boot-sector, or the
base-MFT for an NTFS MFT continuation record.
This is the hexadecimal representation of the physical-sectornumber (PSN) that
corresponds to logical sectornumber (LSN) 0. This represents the
location of the currently selected partition on the physical disk.
The complete range of valid LSN values can be displayed
using the base command.
DFSee introduction and history