		      ͻ
		          EFDISK v2.0 DOCUMENTATION    
		          (C) Nagy Daniel 12-20-96     
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Ŀ
 CONTENTS 


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

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

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

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

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

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

		History............................... 7

		Technical information................. 8

		Contact............................... 9


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 1 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 IDE drives in your system

        - Creating or editing partitions

        - Compatibility with all partition types, including:
             FAT (DOS, Windows, Win95, OS/2)
             Hidden FAT
             HPFS (OS/2)
             Minix (Linux)
             Ext2FS (Linux)
             Linux swap (Linux)
             NTFS (Windows NT)

        - Easy-to-use user interface

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:
          1) Make a system disk: Type: format a: /s (PRESS ENTER)
          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
        after the program writes the modifications to your harddisk,
        the system needs to be rebooted.

        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.

        When you select a partition, EFDISK will ask several questions.
        These are:
        - The hexadecimal type ID of the partition. EFDISK will show you
          the most common types and their IDs.
        - 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.
        - Ending cylinder number of partition. EFDISK will show you the
          maximum cylinder number available for the actual harddisk.

        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 it.

        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!
!!               - This version can handle a maximum of two harddisks only!
                
     3) Notes about partitioning

        - If there's data on your harddisk then create backups of your
          partition tables with MRESCUE.
        - You can have only one active partition in your first harddisk's
          partition table. If you activate a artition, EFDISK will
          automatically clear the other partition's 'active' flag.
!!      - 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
 HISTORY  7 


        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.

Ŀ
 TECHNICAL INFORMATION  8 


        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.

Ŀ
 CONTACT  9 


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


        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
