*** Press Release *** Upper Design announces 'Upper Disk Tools V1.0'. 'Upper Disk Tools' (UDT) is a growing package of disk related software tools. These tools are to help the user to overcome problems with disks. Version 1.0 only includes two tools: 'Recovery' and 'DSBackup' (Disk Structure Backup). Other tools are under development to be released within incoming versions of 'UDT'. - About Recovery: Recovery is file recovery program that uses a new concept to recover deleted or lost files from normal or corrupted disk. Q. So, what's so new about Recovery's concept to recover files? A. Well, instead of being an application with a specific user interface designed for the purpose of recovering files, Recovery adds a new AmigaDOS virtual device named 'REC:' with an associated volume named 'Recovery:'. Through this new device, the user can access any kind of files present in an AmigaDOS disk, either been deleted, lost, headerless or even those that have not been deleted. Q. In simple words, what does an user have to do to retrieve any files using Recovery? A. After starting Recovery, usually an user interface window will appear. This window is only meant to let the user edit some of Recovery's options. To actually retrieve any files from a disk, for instance Work:, the user just has scan the Recovery:Drives/Work/ directory. The user can do it either in Workbench, from Amiga Shell or any other directory utility. The scan process may take a while, and so a progress requester with a fuel gauge will appear, giving an idea of how much of the disk remains to be scanned. Depending on what files were found while scanning a disk, some directories named Deleted_files, Lost_files, Headerless_files or Files_in_disk may appear inside Recovery:Drives/Work/ directory. From this point, the user can do many things with any of the files found like for instance copy, read, test or even try to execute them without first moving them to a another place. Q. How safe is Recovery to use? A. Recovery is absolutely safe to use as it never alters data on the volume being scanned, nor allows any other application to modify data on the volume while Recovery is scanning it. This was done to both inspire trust in the user and provide failsafe access to a possibly damaged disk. Q. How fast is Recovery when looking for files? A. Recovery is very efficient and smart enough to 'know' where deleted or lost files are most likely to be found in a disk. When set to 'Fast Search' mode, it won't search for files in places in the disk where it is known that there could only be files accessible through normal AmigaDOS usage. This way, the time taken to scan a disk can be drastically reduced, saving the user's normal anxiety while waiting for the program to tell him or her if some data lost is still recoverable. Q. Was Recovery meant to compete or replace any of the other file recovery programs existing in the Amiga software market? A. Absolutely not. Recovery was always meant to provide a safe, fast and confortable way to let the Amiga users retrieve lost data from disks, regardless other existing software packages for the same purpose. However, Recovery can be thought to be used in cooperatives ways with other disk related tools. Recovery is recommended to be the first tool that should be used before any other package that attemps to fix any damage. For instance, whenever large ammounts of data is wanted to backed up to a safer place, Recovery could be used together with the user's favourite directory backup utility like it is done with normal files. Q. What do well-known and experienced Amiga users think about Recovery? A. Some comments... Everything is so transparent that it is easily possible to read or even execute any deleted file directly through REC: device, even without having to copy that file to elsewhere.This file recovery program is the way it is meant to be. If you know how to deal with Workbench, the CLI, or a directory utility, you know how to recover your files with this program. Makes good use of the way the operating system was designed to provide users with the power they need to save them from file loss. It really is a great idea to use the loadable filesystem handlers as a way to recover files. Michael Sinz - former Commodore-Amiga Software Engineer. --- Nice! I really like it. I've only played with it for a second, but it looks great. Now I've got to wait until I accidently delete my source again ;-) Nico François - well known Amiga developer. --- Recovery is a straight-forward, easy to use system for recovering deleted files. It is much faster than previous programs of this type as well, since you can tell it to only scan currently unallocated blocks (the most likely place to find a deleted file). With its drive locking mechanism, you are also assured of not overwriting the file you are trying to recover, while still being able to read other files/data from the drive. James Cooper from SAS Institute --- - About DSBackup: This program is meant to allow relevant information about the structure of a disk, to be saved for later retrieval for instance in the case of a disk crash. Q. What information does DSBackup actually save? A. DSBackup is able to save either mountlists for each AmigaDOS formated disk or hard drive partition and can also backup a copy of the Rigid Disk Block of an hard drive. The Rigid Disk Block is a block at the beginning of an hard drive that enables the system to autoboot from that disk. This block is where the information about the partitions of a disk is stored. If the Rigid Disk Block of an hard drive gets corrupted or unreadable, the system is not able to recognize it and so the data of the hard drive partitions is inaccesible. Q. Will DSBackup ever be useful to an hard drive user? A. Hopefully not. But accidents as serious hard drive crash may happen, and you would better be prepared today, as a simple utility like DSBackup may save you a lot of grief. - About 'Upper Disk Tools 1.0' as a package: Q. Stated as a growing package, what other disk related tools are planned to be added in future releases of UDT? A. Some other disk related tools a indeed being planned to be included in future releases of UDT. Their type will only be revealed whenever appropiate. Other tools may be developed depending on the support of the users. Q. Can UDT applications localized to other languages besides english? A. UDT applications can be localized in the following languages: English Svenska Italiano Deutsch Slovenski Nederlands Français Norsk Português Español Q. What kind of documentation come with UDT? A. UDT comes with a 60 page printed user manual. This user manual was designed to be very accesible even for a less experienced Amiga user. It includes a 'Trouble Shooting' section the helps the users to defeat most of the usage difficulties. Additionally UDT applications have built-in online help. Q. How much does UDT cost? And how can it be purchased? A. UDT recommended retail price is £20 (UK). If it is not yet available through your regular Amiga software dealer it can be purchased directly from Upper Design. Please contact or call Upper Design for further information at: Upper Design Apartado 391 3800 AVEIRO Portugal Phone: (351) (34) 381884 Internet E-Mail: UpperDesign@zeus.ci.ua.pt Q. Is there a freely available demo version of UDT? A. There is a currently freely distributable demo version available from many sources. For those that have access to Internet ftp, it can be download from any Aminet site where it is available with the path: pub/aminet/disk/salv/UDT_Recovery.lha For those that only have access to Internet E-Mail, it can be obtained by sending the following text as a mail message to this mail server: mail-server@cs.tu-berlin.de Mail Message: --- cut here --- BEGIN CWD pub/aminet/disk/salv ENCODING UUENCODE SEND UDT_Recovery.lha END --- cut here --- It will soon be also available from several well-know systems like Portal, BIX, CIX, SAN-ADS, etc...