ontrack disk manager - how does ist work and where is it?
Ralf Gmeiner
i'm using ontrack disk manager on my 10gig ibm hd, since my bios only allows
8gig hd's...
i was just wondering how the thing works, especially where the program (if
you can call it that) is saved on the hd...
i used a disk editor to scan the whole hard drive for the string "ontrack",
but i couldn't find it anywhere. not in sector 0-0-1 (mbr) nor in sector
0-1-1 (windows boot sector) (C-H-S). i mean: where does that blue banner
message come from, every time i boot up?
btw: what lies between sector 0-0-1 and sector 0-1-1? (most of it looks
empty). and why does there seem to be a copy of my windows boot sector in
sector 0-0-7? where are the fat32-tables?
is there some documentation or faq on this subject? i'm rather curious about
the whole thing...
best regards
ralf
andrus
wrote:
Unless you absolutely positively MUST resort to Ontract, do not use
it. It's a bitch to get it out once it's in ;p.
AD
Svend Olaf Mikkelsen
>i'm using ontrack disk manager on my 10gig ibm hd, since my bios only allows
>8gig hd's...
>
>i was just wondering how the thing works, especially where the program (if
>you can call it that) is saved on the hd...
>
>i used a disk editor to scan the whole hard drive for the string "ontrack",
>but i couldn't find it anywhere. not in sector 0-0-1 (mbr) nor in sector
>0-1-1 (windows boot sector) (C-H-S). i mean: where does that blue banner
>message come from, every time i boot up?
>
>btw: what lies between sector 0-0-1 and sector 0-1-1? (most of it looks
>empty). and why does there seem to be a copy of my windows boot sector in
>sector 0-0-7? where are the fat32-tables?
>
>is there some documentation or faq on this subject? i'm rather curious about
>the whole thing...
What you see for CHS 0/0/1 in the disk editor is really CHS 0/1/1. At
least on a disk with 63 sectors per track.
If you copy the editor to a floppy, and boot directly to the floppy,
you will see the real disk content.
DM is in the first sectors of the disk. In the real MBR there is an
active DM partition, which is called at boot. Then a BIOS disk
interrupt 13h handler is installed in memory. This technique let DM
survive an fdisk /mbr done from direct floppy boot.
DM then maps sector n to sector n+x. In the cases I have seen x is 63.
EZ-drive stores the *virtual* MBR in the second sector on the disk,
but has all other sectors in the same location. EZ-drive might not be
compatible with Windows NT.
BM and EZ works with OS'es that do directly disk access, simple
because the OS recognizes the disk managers and then use the same
sector mapping.
Last time I checked no useable technical information was available
either for DM or EZ-drive. Too bad in my opinion.
--
Svend Olaf