fsck suite history file:


fsck

1.00 - 1.04 -- May 94
First fully working versions, released only to a few people via e-mail.
1.10 -- 11 May 94
RISCiX partitions are now fully supported (ie. mapped out). First version distributed as SHAREWARE.
1.11 -- ?? Jun 94
Added -a option. The logfile is appended to the end of the file if it already exists and now it contains the creation date. Great speed increase (up to 2 times faster without -s and 5 times faster with -s!!!). Now fsck is just 25% slower than *CheckMap (or 2 times slower with -s)! Added the note about "Free space chunks statistics" (see the section Notes).
1.12 -- 12 Jun 94
Another speed improvement (just 10%)! fsck isn't yet as fast as *CheckMap but I'm working on it ;-) Fixed a possible dangerous behaviour of -a option. Added a warning for HD boot blocks marked as defect. Slowed down the wheel. Added files MapExpl and StatsHelp.
1.13 -- 26 Jun 94
Faster again (15% with -s, 3% without)!! Now statistics are just a bit slower than normal mode. Automatic creation of lostdir. More messages at the end of the process that can help to understand what happened (ie. the disc is fixed, fixable, unfixable, etc.) and more helpful error messages (no more Can't find 'AD::0.$': incorrect FS) if the floppy drive is empty!
1.20 -- 11 Oct 94
Completely rewritten! As you would expect: FASTER (this is probably the maximum achievable speed with the structure of fsck, so don't expect further significant improvements!). Now fsck is 20-30% faster than *CheckMap, even with statistics enabled! Directory recognition added (see the "What it does" section). No more files to move (so many people complained about this)! Added -m and -n options to 'simulate' 1.13 version. Added -c option to simulate *CheckMap (!). Removed the obsolescent -a option. Fixed problems with ImageFSFix module and removed -I option. If some file has allocation problems, the name of the file is reported together with the error, so that you can use 'eliminate' to remove it. Fixed a lot of bugs, some more sensible messages and more consistent way to print some value. Added new statistics about files that must be fragmented. Modified command line behaviour: if no 'pathname' is given, fsck scans the current disc (as *CheckMap does). Added hardfix program. Added '!QuickFix' and '!Intro' files. Modified most of this help file, removed the "Can a serious filing system corrupt discs?" section that contained only my (debatable) opinions and added "fsck and Risc PC" section.
1.21 -- 05 Feb 95
Fixed some minor bug and added some error trapping. Added and documented a sensible return code and the system variable fsck$ReturnCode. Fixed some bugs in the directory relinking feature.
1.22 -- 12 Jun 95
Fixed bug that caused problems when relinking directories that share sectors with other files to relink. Fixed problems related to non-ADFS partitions. Fixed a bug that caused wrong IDs to be relinked in very infrequent cases. Removed the limit on the number of IDs to relink (ie. no more Too many IDs to relink errors).
1.30 -- 03 Jan 96
Added code-based user registration. Stopped maintaintaining list of fixed discs since it was growing too much! Added support for 'big' discs (registered version only). Now files with file ID of 2 are checked (I didn't know they could exist!). Report an error on files with sector offset too big (need to be eliminated). Fixed bug that sometimes caused two directories to be relinked with the same name. Added possibility to relink files in the root directory specifying '$' as relink directory using the -d option (although this is not really recommended!). No more try to report RISCiX partitions if the disc is just badly formatted... Using both -s and -v now gives sensible results! fsck now says to use 'hardfix' if the root directory is broken, not 'eliminate'!
1.31 -- 20 Dec 96
Fixed a problem that prevented fsck from running properly with Panasonic PD drives. Check if the disc to scan is larger than 512Mb using a version of FileCore that is unable to handle such discs (ie. if the disc has been incorrectly formatted). A warning is now reported if there are incorrectly allocated system files and the user is adviced to run 'hardfix'. The unregistered version is now able to scan 'big' discs but will not eventually fix them. Fixed problems with discs larger than 2Gb (ie. LFAU larger than 8Kb). Now RISC OS 2 compatible, hopefully! Fixed a small bug that sometimes caused the relink of files with wrong ID.

eliminate

1.00 -- 13 Apr 94
First working version. Tried only on floppies...
1.01 -- 11 May 94
Some test was done on HardDiscs (all successful). Updated to match the changes in the common sources with fsck.
1.02 -- ?? Jun 94
Auto-dismount the disc after the file has been eliminated.
1.10 -- 11 Oct 94
Completely rewritten in order to keep it up-to-date with the new versions of fsck. This caused a big size reduction (since most of the code included in the old one was used only by fsck!). Some more check and meaningful messages added.
1.11 -- 05 Feb 95
Nothing really new, just linked with a more stable library (see fsck).
1.12 -- 12 Jun 95
Minor internal reorganisation.
1.20 -- 03 Jan 96
Added code-based user registration. Added support for 'big' discs (registered version only). Improved error message when the user tries to eliminate the root directory (ie suggests to use 'hardfix').
1.21 -- 22 Dec 96
Fixed a problem that prevented eliminate from running properly with Panasonic PD drives.

hardfix

1.00 -- 11 Oct 94
First released version.
1.01 -- 05 Feb 95
Cured a bug that in some case prevented to fix some strange case of lost free space in some zone. When restoring the map it tries not to read the disc shape from the disc itself (because it may be corrupted) but uses the saved one. Removed the possibility to write the bootblock to disc since it could be dangerous. Added fix of too high ID and not sector-aligned objects. Fixed some problem with RISCiX partitioned bootblocks and with bad defect list (not really useful since the ability to fix bootblocks has been removed!). Added fix of root address and root reserved bytes.
1.02 -- 12 Jun 95
Fixed defect list checksum calculation that was broken if there was only one defect. Improved handling of non-ADFS partitioned discs.
1.10 -- 03 Jan 96
Added code-based user registration. Added check for last object in zone too long. Added support for 'big' discs (registered version only).
1.11 -- 22 Dec 96
Fixed a problem that prevented hardfix from running properly with Panasonic PD drives. Added check and fix for unofficial system files (including a warning for Gordian Installed programs). The unregistered version now checks 'big' discs but will not eventually fix them.

© Copyright Sergio Monesi, 1997-1999.
Last updated: 07 May 1999