Mail Archives: opendos/2001/05/31/02:40:54
Ahhhh ... my brain hurts! ;-)
Seriously though, it occurs to me that, to prevent the further escalation
of anarchy in this area, this is a matter which perhaps the T13 folks could
adopt as a project for standardisation. After all, they have formalised the
standards for ATA, LBA and BIOS disk services. Therefore, it would not
be unreasonable for them to set some standards for partition table stuff.
This would be preferable to different folks all doing their own thing with
no
coordination. Details about T13 are at http://www.t13.org (AFAIK, it is not
necessary to become a member to subscribe to their e-mail reflector, and
this would probably be the best way to introduce such a project to the
organisation). Anyway, it's just one of my crazy ideas ...
WRT, the implementation of LFN, I really think this must be M$-DOS 7
compatible. Sure, any implementation may be useful, but as I have said
before, M$-DOS is the predominant DOS, so DR-DOS has to be compatible
with this. BTW, I don't see compatibility with DR-DOS passwords as very
important, since booting an M$-DOS 7 diskette is such an easy way to
bypass this type of security. As for the ridiculous LFN patents, there are
only two possibilities that I can see (given that none of us has the
resources
to challenge the validity of these patents in the courts) :
1) If anyone has a friend with expertise about patent law, perhaps they
could advise what circumstances allow for others to use patented stuff.
For instance, some people claim freeware is exempt - is it actually?
2) Our US friends may be able to approach their political representatives,
who in turn could take this issue up with those nice anti-trust folks.
Joe.
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Matthias Paul [SMTP:Matthias DOT Paul AT post DOT rwth-aachen DOT de]
> Sent: Wednesday, 30 May 2001 9:21
> To: fd-dev AT topica DOT com
> Cc: opendos AT delorie DOT com
> Subject: Proposal for new partition type IDs for use with future
> DOSes
>
> [CC: DR-DOS mailing list <opendos AT delorie DOT com>.
> I think, however, the discussion is best placed in
> the FreeDOS mailing list at <fd-dev AT topica DOT com>.]
>
> Dear DOSers,
>
> Finally I have put together my draft for a couple
> of new FAT partition types to be added to FreeDOS,
> DR-DOS, and possibly other DOSes. Since I am
> maintaining a list of used partition IDs and are
> in the process to compile some stuff for RBIL62,
> I would like to hear your opinion on this proposal.
>
> Let me start with a short overview of FAT partition IDs:
>
> 01h DOS 2.0+ FAT12 (usually for < 16 Mb)
> 04h DOS 3.0+ FAT16 (<= 32 Mb)
> 05h DOS 3.3+ extended partition (EXT DOS)
> 06h DOS 3.31+ FAT16B (BIGDOS > 32 Mb)
> 0Bh DOS 7.10+ FAT32
> 0Ch DOS 7.10+ FAT32X (LBA)
> 0Eh DOS 7.10+ FAT16X (LBA)
> 0Fh DOS 7.10+ extended partition (LBA)
>
> [A. Partition IDs for "hidden" partitions]
>
> For some while now Brian Reifsnyder's FDISK lists
> a set of new partition IDs for "hidden" partitions.
> I don't know if they have been reserved "out of a sudden",
> or if they serve a special purpose already.
>
> 8Dh Brian Reifsnyder's FDISK 0.96+ hidden FAT12
> 90h Brian Reifsnyder's FDISK 0.96+ hidden FAT16
> 91h Brian Reifsnyder's FDISK 0.96+ hidden extended partition
> 92h Brian Reifsnyder's FDISK 0.96+ hidden FAT16B
> 96h Proposal: See 98h.
> 97h Brian Reifsnyder's FDISK 0.96+ hidden FAT32
> 98h Datalight ROM-DOS SuperBoot partition
> 98h Brian Reifsnyder's FDISK 0.96+ hidden FAT32X
> NOTE: Due to the conflict with Datalight's ROM-DOS
> I propose to use partition ID 96h instead. Any opinions?
> 9Ah Brian Reifsnyder's FDISK 0.96+ hidden FAT16X
> 9Bh Brian Reifsnyder's FDISK 0.96+ hidden extended partition (LBA)
>
> IBM and PowerQuest have already established a set of partition
> IDs for "hidden" partitions. Originally used by the OS/2 and
> PowerQuest Boot Manager and Partition Magic they have
> meanwhile evolved into a quasi-standard and are also
> supported by other partitioning software and boot managers.
>
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