DiskSalv 4 (V13.6) Release Notes This is the second commercial release of the DiskSalv 4 program. The DiskSalv program and distribution materials are Copyright 1991-1996 by Dave Haynie, All Rights Reserved. This program is a commercial release, and may not be copied in any form, except as part of ordinary single-user backup activities. About AmigaGuide Commodore's AmigaGuide is not included with this distribution. If you have a 3.x system, you'll want to change the iam.guide and DiskSalv.guide icons to use MultiView rather than the AmigaGuide program. Otherwise, make sure that you've installed Commodore's freely redistributable AmigaGuide package, available from numerous sources. Bugs with AmigaGuide cause problems on some systems with DiskSalv's Guide files. We have not been able to determine the cause of these problems. In the worst case, you can always read the documentation with a viewer such as "more." There are also third-party freely-redistributable AmigaGuide viewers such as MoreText. If you have problems with DiskSalv3 because of AmigaGuide, simply select the option not to use it when DiskSalv3 brings up a requester telling you that you have an early version of AmigaGuide. Upgrading to AmigaOS 3.1 is a good thing generally, and no AmigaGuide problems have been reported with 3.x systems and DiskSalv3. (12.17 update)The on-line documentation has been updated. This contains a list of the enhancements, and it works around some of the bugs in V34 versions of the AmigaGuide.library. A Note On Packaging Please reuse and recycle. While we've done our best to minimize DiskSalv's packaging, we know that even this is not enough. For direct orders, we ship just a disk in a mailer, and there's not much you can do with that. If you bought DiskSalv 3 off the store shelf, please pass the outer wrap on to a friend to tell them about DiskSalv, and please use the mailer the next time you need to send a disk. Updates Updates to DiskSalv 4 will probably be available as freely redistributable patches from all the usual sources. If you don't have a modem or user's group through which to obtain freely redistributable software, you are missing out on a lot! (Shameless plug: "Connect Your Amiga! A Guide to the Internet, LANs, BBSs and Online Services" has good information about sources of freely redistributable software.) The most current updates should always be available via anonymous ftp in the directory: file:ftp.iam.com/biz/iam/disksalv User Support Unlimited user support is available, via Internet and FAX. Please note that this is provided to answer real questions, problems, etc. It is not an interactive on-line manual. Such a manual is provided in the DiskSalv.guide file. No free telephone support is provided for DiskSalv4. Contacts: Internet: disksalv-bugs@iam.com FAX: +1-609-224-0442 DISKSALV SUPPORT ONLY Do not send orders to Dave's fax or email (above). For orders, contact IAM or it's distributors as listed in the AmigaGuide file for contact information. Do not call IAM for support or bug reports for DiskSalv 3. We request, if you wish return correspondence by FAX of any kind, please furnish a real FAX number that's active at all times. We will not retry FAX numbers that only answer part-time. Note that Dave Haynie attempts to answer direct email, but will give preferential treatment to email sent to the official support address. Serious questions will be answered as soon as possible. Bug reports will be immediately researched, but no return acknowledgement will be sent unless requested. Bugs not to report: 1) Old DiskSalv 2 problems. These can be, and probably have been, addressed via the DiskSalv 2 shareware support mechanisms; send mail/email directly to Dave Haynie, and he'll act/reply as he see fit. 2) Don't complain about funny DiskSalv requesters if you're using any of the "Requester Improvement" hacks from the public domain. All of these examined so far do not fully support the capabilities Intuition BuildSysRequest() function, and therefore may mutate DiskSalv's requesters for the worse. If you don't like this, don't run such programs -- DiskSalv is fully compliant Intuition rules. 3) Don't complain about DiskSalv not recovering/salvaging your MS-DOS, OS/2, Windows NT, Macintosh, ISO9660, or other non-AmigaDOS-standard disk format. It doesn't do this. However, as of DiskSalv 3, it does attempt to identify some of these alien formats, and when it does successfully do so, it attempts to prevent you from doing something stupid to that disk. 4) Don't complain about abuse of the Device Editor window. DiskSalv tries to be smart about things, but it's not Kreskin -- it doesn't attempt to figure out that you're doing something wrong. If you are, sorry, but like most power tools, you can get hurt if you don't know what you're doing. DiskSalv 3's user interface takes extra measures to simplify the standard stuff and keep the more advanced features out of the way. You aren't going to accidently stumble across this stuff. FileSystem Support We are interested in supporting any file system in common use on the Amiga. To date, this has been limited to the AmigaDOS native file system variations. However, we're more than happy to support any 3rd party custom file systems in future DiskSalv versions. If you have developed or are developing a file system, and would like us to consider support for it in DiskSalv, you can contact us via mail or email, or send the following: - One copy of the file system handler, and anything else necessary to install the file system on a standard 32-bit Amiga. - Details of the file system's structure, including directories, files, links, etc. - Any other details on the file system: file system type identification code, support/non-support of different block sizes, etc. Obviously, if we receive 20 new file systems, there isn't likely to be time to implement them all in the next release. However, any file systems received will be prioritized into the enhancement list. We do expect to support any file system in common use, especially if it's clearly documented. Revision History SEE GUIDE FILE FOR CHANGES SINCE 12.15. CHANGES 12.15 (164804 bytes, README updated by DL at IAM) - Primarily fixes bug which could cause DS3 to write the wrong file type to block 0. CHANGES 12.12 (164668 bytes, +1116 bytes) - Added IAM logo/name to the "About..." menu/gadget. - Additional firewalls added to disk scanner routine, in an effort to better reject non-disk-filesystem based devices. - Added several extra checks in the disk drop routines, to better reject non-disk-filesystem based devices. CHANGES 12.11 (163552 bytes, +176 bytes) - Several HELP message tokens adjusted for better interactivity. - HELP gadget hit routine adjusted to sort for smallest matched gadget. CHANGES 12.10 (163376 bytes, +720 bytes) - Warning message put up for amigaguide.library versions less than 39. This is only put up if neither FORCEGUIDE nor NOGUIDE are specified as command parameters. - New FORCEGUIDE command parameter forces amigaguide.library to be used on V39 systems without a warning. - The Device Editor's "Project/Load from File..." function now properly updates when successfully loading a DOSDrivers file. - Pattern matches now correctly terminate on STOP and EXCLUDE. CHANGES 12.9 (162656 bytes) - First pre-release for production. -- This is the publisher's release package for DiskSalv 4. This release is designed primarily to fix a big in previous versions of DiskSalv 4 that caused an incorrect block zero filesystem type to be written in fix-in-place functions. Note that the Repair or Unformat functions in this version will correct this problem on any disks so damaged. This release version is: V13.6s Release for Stefan Ossowski's Schatztruhe V13.6i Release for Intangible Assets Manufacturing Revision History CHANGES 13.6 - Provisional DiskSalv 4 release. - Added AFS modes to disk Search/Analyze function. - Added help prompting and some new help contexts. CHANGES 13.4 - Now called DiskSalv 3.5 - Many, many AFS fixes. No dependencies on AFS Root anymore. - New Best-Guess functionality. CHANGES 13.2 - Basic AFS stuff is working. LEGAL The standard software disclaimer: This software isn't yours, it's still ours, we're just letting you use it. Of course, we don't guarantee that you actually can use it, that it'll do anything we claim it will, or even that it won't cause irreversible physical harm to your computer, its hard drive, you, your cat, your close relatives, or even most of a city block. Do not taunt HappyFunBall... In other words, Dave Haynie, Dale L. Larson, IAM and their suppliers do not warrant the performance or results you may obtain by using DiskSalv. We make no warranties, express or implied, as to performance, noninfringement of third party rights, merchantability, fitness for any particular purpose, or anything else that we can possibly disclaim. In case you still don't get the idea, let us paraphrase the disclaimer from from Haventree Software's EasyFlow program. (Haventree can sue us if they don't like us reproducing their great prose.) If DiskSalv doesn't work: tough. If you lose millions because DiskSalv messes up, it's you that's out the millions, not us. If you don't like this disclaimer: tough. We reserve the right to do the absolute minimum provided by law, up to and including nothing. This is basically the same disclaimer that comes with all software packages, but ours is in plain English and theirs is in legalese. We didn't want to include any disclaimer at all, but our lawyers insisted. Installer and Installer project icon (c) Copyright 1991-93 Commodore-Amiga, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Reproduced and distributed under license from Commodore. INSTALLER SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS-IS" AND SUBJECT TO CHANGE; NO WARRANTIES ARE MADE. ALL USE IS AT YOUR OWN RISK. NO LIABILITY OR RESPONSIBILITY IS ASSUMED.