RDB-Salv - Salvage of lost RDSK/RDB data


INTRO
   Have  you ever lost your RigidDiskBlock? Then you know that it is very
   difficult  to restore this data if you don't have a backup of it. Many
   people  even  think  that  it  is  nearly impossible to restore a lost
   RigidDiskBlock, but this is not true.

   Next  time  you  loose  your  RigidDiskBlock,  you  might  want to try
   RDB-Salv  -  a  professional  and  comfortable program to restore lost
   RigidDiskBlocks.

   Since  a  backup  is better than any try to restore anything, RDB-Salv
   additionally  includes  a  backup and restore tool for RigidDiskBlocks
   which writes the RDB into a file.


REQUIREMENTS
   RDB-Salv  requires OS 2.04 or better. It should work with any harddisk
   system (SCSI, AT-Bus, OMTI, ...) that supports trackdisk commands.


FUNCTIONS
   - Backup RigidDiskBlock to file
   - Restore RigidDiskBlock from file
   - Read  RigidDiskBlock  (optionally  scans  harddisk while looking for
     lost  RDBs).  This  function  additionally  provides  the  following
     features:
      o Write MountLists of all partition blocks found
      o Mount partitions of all partition blocks found
      o Add lost partition block(s) to RDSK
      o Write whole RDSK
     If  any partition has not been mounted during boot time, you can use
     this function to mount it later. This is a useful side effect. ;-)
   - Read DeviceList
     If   you   have  just  overwritten  your  RigidDiskBlocks,  but  all
     partitions  are  still mounted, you can try to restore the data from
     the DeviceList. The following functions are available then:
      o Write MountLists of all partitions found
      o Add lost partitions to RDSK
      o Write whole RDSK
   - Salvage of RigidDiskBlocks
     This  function  scans  the whole harddisk and looks for any AmigaDOS
     partition.  On  my  A1000,  it scans about 100 MB per minute. If any
     partition  has been found, it will be displayed at once. Overlapping
     partitions will be marked. Unused spaces are shown, too.


FEATURES
   - Easy to use.
   - Very good German manual (printed and as AmigaGuide document).
   - Support of very large SCSI-harddisks (>4 GB).
   - Support of blocksize 512, 1024, 2048, ...
   - Use of locale.library, if available.
   - Fontsensitive GUI.
   - Every  function  that  changes anything on your harddisk brings up a
     requester before changing anything.
   - Many  workarounds  for buggy harddisk devices.  So I hope to support
     nearly any harddisk system.


LIMITATIONS
   When  using "Salvage", RDB-Salv only can find lost AmigaDOS partitions
   (DOS/0 to DOS/5). It is possible to add support for other filesystems,
   but  I  will  only do this if enough people register. Furthermore, the
   harddisk   may   only   contain   partitions   with  "Reserved=2"  and
   "PreAlloc=0",  otherwise  you might run into trouble. But I don't know
   anybody with different values there.

   There's  only  a short English documentation available. Since RDB-Salv
   is  very  easy to use, this should be enough in most cases. The German
   documentation  is  much  better  and if enough people register, I will
   translate the German documentation into English.

   Many  scsi  devices  and other harddisk devices are buggy. They do not
   handle  TD_GETGEOMETRY  correctly.  I've  tried  to do my best to work
   around  these  bugs, but I can not guarantee that it really works with
   _every_  harddisk system. In case you have trouble, have a look at the
   tooltypes  of  RDB-Salv and turn on NOGETGEOMETRY and/or NOSCSICMD and
   send  me  a  bugreport.  Then,  I  will  try  to add support in future
   versions.


AVAILABILITY
   RDB-Salv is still beta and not yet available (16-4-96). Have a look at
   my homepage (http://home.pages.de/~Angela/) for news about RDB-Salv. I
   am planning to release it in a few weeks.

   In  case  of  emergency  you  can  call  me  at  +49 721 695307  or at
   +49 731 712316.