Partition Manager Help

    Partition Manager Help (v2.37.10)

       What is partition table, MBR, IPL?

       Saving and Restoring MBR
       Creating a new partition
       Formatting partition, supported file systems
       Things that you should do before installing a new OS

       Compact Boot Manager
       Advanced Boot Manager
       Virus detection and hints
       Running DOS from the second hard drive

       Command line options

       Links to additional help

       Contacting author and copyrights

    What is partition table?

         Partition table is located in the first sector of every hard disk.
      It has information about sizes and locations of partitions on the disk.
      What is partition? It is a piece of disk space marked to belong to some
      operating system. For example, your C: drive resides in the partition
      of type BIGDOS.

         Most disks have one partition, but some people want to have more
      than one operating system on their computers and therefore, have to
      divide their disks into different partitions. That's why partition table
      also keeps an indicator of the currently 'Active' partition - the one
      from  which the computer boots.

         When you turn on your computer BIOS loads into memory the first
      sector from hard disk, called MBR (Master Boot Record). In addition to
      partition table, this sector contains an IPL (Initial Program Loader) -
      a piece of code that searches partition table for an 'Active' record
      and loads in memory boot sector of the corresponding operating system.

          Standard IPL would simply load a boot sector without any messages
       or questions. And this is good if you have only one operating system,
       but when you have more then one, you need something more sophisticated.
       For example, IPL that comes with this program can ask user at
       boot time which operating system he want to boot and
       will remember the selection, so that the next time it boots from the
       same OS.

          Partition table is limited to maximum 4 entries. This program gives
       you an option to have up to 31 bootable partitions if you install
       Advanced Boot Manager.

       Links to additional information and help

    Saving and Restoring MBR

          Saving you MBR is the first thing you have to do before playing
      with this program.

          First of all create a bootable floppy disk and copy this program
       to floppy. Than save your MBR to a file. You can do it
       by using S command in interactive mode or by running program from
       the command line:

               part -s a:\saved.mbr

       If something goes wrong, you can always restore the original MBR by
       running the command:

               part -l a:\saved.mbr

          If you are using the same floppy with more than one computer be
       careful not to put MBR from one hard disk to another. It will do no
       harm, but you may have a few minutes of panic thinking that you have
       lost all your files, before you figure out what happend. So, make
       sure that you give distinctive names to the files with saved MBRs.

          But even if you do load the wrong table it will most likely
       become RED, because partition settings will conflict
       with the current hard disk geometry.

    Selecting active partition

          To make partition active you can press SPACE in the interactive
       mode or from the command line:

                part -p        print partition table
                part -a n      where n is a partition number

          If you have installed an IPL then you can press SPACE on the
       active partition to make it inactive and when you reboot computer
       it will try to boot from the second hard disk, or from a floppy.

    Advanced Boot Manager

           With Advanced Boot Manager you can have up to 31 bootable
       partitions. It keeps its own partition table in the separate space
       on the disk.

           When you boot the computer the first part of Advanced Boot Manager,
      which is located inside MBR tries to read the second part from the disk
      and checks its integrity. In case if it was corrupted it promts the user
      to boot from A: or hard disk.

           After that Advanced Boot Manager checks for viruses, and then
      compares records in MBR with its own partition table. If there were any
      changes, the Advanced Boot Manager copies modified records to its own
      partition table and advises the user to run part.exe to review them.
      Also see notes on installing a new OS.

           Then Advanced Boot Manager gives you a menu where you can select
      from which partition you want to boot. After you make a choice it copies
      the record of the selected partition to MBR table and hides the rest of
      the space on the disk.

      Advanced Boot Manager keys:

      ENTER - boot from the highlighted partition (you can also press 1-9)
      ESC   - boot from the highlighted partition, but don't remember this
              choice for the next time.
      A     - boot from A and put the highlighted partition in MBR
      H     - boot from A but hide all partitions on the hard disk,
              except the first piece of the unused space which is larger
              than 63 sectors. (Good when you install a new OS).
      TAB	- boot from the next hard drive.

      ALT-ENTER - Same as ENTER, but do not put keys into keyboard buffer
              if there are any keys specified in the boot menu.

    Editing Advanced Boot Manager Menu

      For each item in the menu you can specify:   (see example)

      - Device from which you want to boot (Dev)

           C - current disk (on which this menu resides)
           D - next hard disk
           A - first floppy disk

      - Which partition should be made active on this hard disk (0 - for none)

      - Row in which this partition should be placed in the MBR. (see example)

      - Which partitions show together with the bootable partition.
        The choices are: Last, Previous, Next, and Last3 partitions,
        including the one from which you boot.

      - Whether this menu choice should be password protected (PP)

      - The name that you want to see in the menu

      - Keystrokes that should be placed in keyboard buffer before booting
        this OS. (for exaple, simulating F4 before booting Windows 95 will
        make Windows 95 booting the previous version of MS-DOS)

      If you press Alt-O you can change boot manager's options:

           - Boot menu title
           - Enable check for boot viruses
           - Clear screen before drawing the menu
           - Timeout (0 forces boot manager to stop and wait for user's input)
           - Default partition (overrides remembered "last selected")
           - Optional password for Advanced Boot Manager
           - Ignore unused partitions, when evaluating "Prev", "Next", "Last"

          When password is set it protects booting from floppy (via keys A, H)
     and from the second hard disk via TAB. However, you can make a menu line
     which will boot from the floppy or the next hard disk, without asking the
     password (simply do not enable "PP" - password protected - flag).

    Example of Advanced Boot Manager setup

     Suppose that you have two hard disks on the system:

          Your new 4.3Gb hard disk                And old 340Mb hard disk

          1  AdvBootManager    30k                1  DOS FAT-16     340Mb
          2  Windows FAT-32  2600M
          3  Windows NT NTFS  400M
          4  Linux            400M
          5  Linux swap        30M
          6  DOS Extended     800M

     Then Advanced Boot Manager Menu could look like this:

          #  Dev  Partitions  Name                    Keys

          1   C   2/*  Last   Windows 95                N
          2   C   2/*  Last   Windows 95 / Prompt       Y  <-  "F8 6 Enter"
          3   C   3/2  Last   Windows NT                N
          4   C   4/3  Next   Linux                     N
          5   C   4/3  Last3  Linux (sees extended)     N
          6   D   6/*  ----   Old MS-DOS (sees ext)     N
          7   D   0    ----   Old MS-DOS (sees nothing) N

        Note: in order to get DOS running from the second hard drive you have
     to do the following steps:

       - Install Compact or Advanced Boot Manager on the second hard drive
       - Go to setup screen for FAT-16 partition and set drive number to 129
       - Make sure you don't have any unhidden primary FAT-16/12 partitions
         on the first hard drive when you boot from the second.

        Also note that Windows NT and Linux will be placed in rows 2 and 3
     in the partition table, respectively, while we don't care where will
     end up Windows 95.
        For Windows NT it is important always to be in the same row, because
     it's boot.ini file has syntax like this:

     multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINNT="Windows NT" /basevideo /sos

     And it would not be able to find its kernel if we move it to a different
     row in the partition table.

    Another example - preparing for installation of Windows 98 (or anther OS)

       - Create a bootable floppy and copy Partition Manager to it
       - Create and then format partition
       - Edit boot menu

               Your partitions

          1  AdvBootManager    30k
          2  Windows FAT-32  1600M     <-- This is Windows 95 partition
          3  Windows FAT-32  1200M     <-- This one was just created and
          4  DOS Extended     800M       \ formated for Windows 98

          Advanced Boot Manager Menu

          #  Dev  Partitions  Name                    Keys

          1   C   2/*  Last   Windows 95                N
          2   C   2/*  Last   Windows 95 / Prompt       Y  <-  "F8 6 Enter"
          3   C   3/*  Last   Windows 98                N

       - Save this data to hard disk and to a file on the floppy
       - Reboot computer
       - In the boot manager menu select "Windows 98" and press A
         to boot from a "Windows 98 Setup" floppy
       - After installation of Windows 98 run Partition Manager to
         review any changes in MBR and reinstall boot manager if
         nesessary.

    Compact Boot Manager

           Compact Boot Manager fits in 446 bytes and doesn't need any space
       on the disk beyond MBR. It is simply an IPL.

       When you install it you have 4 options:

           - Enable check for boot viruses
           - Prompt's time-out
           - Default partition (overrides remembered "last selected")
           - Default place to boot from if none of the partitions are active.
             The choices are A: and the next hard drive.

       Hint: if you set default partition to A then computer will always
             boot from A:, if to Tab - from the next hard disk, and when
             set to Space - then it will stop and wait for your choice.

    Understanding messages of Compact Boot Manager

           Message                         Description

                              Press ESC to skip prompt and boot OS
                              Press SPACE to stop and wait for selection
    "Booting from: HD1/1..."  Press 1-4 to boot from corresponding partition
    "Booting from: HD1/_"     Press A to boot from a floppy or TAB to boot
                              from the next hard drive. Any other key will
                              resume booting, and will remain in the buffer.
                              For instance F4, F5, F8, ... (see hints)

    "Writing changes..."      IPL is saving your selection into MBR.

    "Error!"                  Error reading disk or empty partition selected.

    "Virus !!!"               IPL found that one of interrupt vectors doesn't
                              point to ROM BIOS memory (see virus protection).
                              You can press ENTER to resume booting, but it
                              would be better to shut down the computer and
                              run antivirus program, after booting from a
                              clean floppy disk.

    Virus protection

          IPL that comes with this program can detect viruses even before
       operating system gets into memory. This is important, because some
       MBR viruses cannot be detected by antivirus programs that are
       loaded after operating system.

          Virus detection is implemented by checking 29 interrupt vectors
       from int 0h to int 1Ch. They must point to addresses C000:0000h or
       higher, where ROM BIOS resides. These interrupts control all vital
       functions of the system, such as Timer, Video, Keyboard, and Disk.

          If any of the interrupts have been changed it is very likely that a
       virus invaded the system. In this case the IPL stops and warns user.
       You have a choice to continue booting with virus in memory or rebooting
       the system and run antivirus. See IPL messages section.

          However, on some systems this method of checking for virusus will
       produce false alarms. In this case you can disable virus detection.

           Another way of protection from viruses is to avoid accidental boots
       from the floppy drive. With this program you can do that, while still
       being able to boot from floppy, when you need it.  To do that:

         1. Install either Advanced or Compact Boot Manager that comes with
            this program.

         2. Change boot sequence to C:,A: in the BIOS setup

         3. When you need to boot from A: at the boot time press A.

         This trick will not only save you from viruses, but will also speed
      up your work. It is especially impressive if you have QEMM 8.xx together
      with MS-DOS or Windows 95.

         Set "BootFloppy:N" option in QEMM's quick boot and add "SWITCHES=/F"
      to your CONFIG.SYS file.

         Next time, when you reboot QEMM's Quick Boot will skip BIOS memory
      test and take you straight to the Compact Boot Manager's prompt where
      you will be more comfortable with pressing F4, F5, or F8 ...

    Creating a new partition

          To create a new partition find unused record in the partition
       table and press INS, then select desired File System type.

          After you do that Partition Manager will automatically put values
       for cylinders, heads, and sectors.

          In most cases you don't need to modify those values. But if you
       have in mind your own partitioning scheme you can change them. When
       you do that, do start and end partitions on the cylinder (or head)
       boundaries. It is not required, but highly recommended. For example,
       if your hard  disk has 16 heads and 63 sectors per head, you should
       start partition on head 0, sector 1 and end on head 15, sector 63.

          If you need to install several operating systems such as MS-DOS,
       Windows 95, or Windows NT, and you want to avoid their interference
       with each other you may want to hide existing partitions, while
       installing operating system into a new one, and unhide them later.

          While you are entering numbers partition may turn red. Don't
       worry about it until you finish.

          The red color of the partition means that the settings appear
       to be invalid or conflicting with the current disk geometry.

          To help you figure out what's wrong I had defined four error codes.
       They are shown in red color on the right when you move cursor on the
       invalid partition.

       mbr: partition overlaps MBR in the first sector of the disk or
            extended dos partition.

       range: partition have values for cylinder, head, or sector (CHS)
            outside of the range of disk or extended dos partition boundaries
            or it ends before it begins. Move cursor on the CHS fields to see
            the hint with allowed values.

       overlapped: two partition are overlapping each other.

       inconsistent: this message means that CHS values do not correspond
            to starting sector and partition size, which are also stored
            in the partition table. Usually this happens if partition table
            was damaged or BIOS disk geometry translation has changed since
            partition table was last modified. This error will also appear
            if you have value 0 for sector (sector must be at least 1).

          If the red color appears as soon as you started it may be because
       you have changed disk controller or BIOS settings or MBR was corrupted.
       If this is the case don't change any values unless you are absolutly
       sure what you are doing.
          Hint for the professionals: no matter how BIOS represents disk
       geometry the relative number of sectors and partition sizes hold.
       To fix the problem of inconsistency you have to switch to the LBA mode
       by pressing F4, note the size of the partition, change it and then
       change it back to the correct size. This will force the program to
       recalculate the values in CHS according to the current disk geometry.
          However, keep in mind two things: As far as I can tell DOS uses
       CHS values to boot and doesn't use starting sector/number of sectors
       fields. Instead, it uses field "sectors prior partition" and
       "big total number of sectors" from its boot record.

          If you had used OnTrack DDO or Ez-Drive you should know that they
       skew disk: OnTrack by 63 sectors and Ez-Drive by 1 sector. Therefore
       you have to reflect this change in DOS boot records.

    Formatting partition

          You can format partitions or just check disk surface for bad sectors
       without destroying the data.

          To verify any partition press V in interactive mode or run:

                 part -v n

          To format partition press F in interactive mode or run:

                 part -f n options ...

          Format options depend on file system that you are formatting.

    Important notes on formatting DOS partitions

          First of all DOS cannot see newly created partition, untill you
       reboot computer, because it scans partition table only once.
          So if you created and/or formatted a new partition you have to
       reboot before you can use it.

          If the partition already mounted (you can see it as a DOS drive)
       and you formatted partition with different parameters you also have
       to reboot computer, because DOS keeps in memory old numbers, and will
       most certainly mess up the disk if you will try to write to it
       without rebooting.

          The other problem is disk caches. Partition Manager flushes them
       using SmartDrive v 4.00+ API. Most of the new cache programs, such as
       PC-Cache 8.0, NCACHE2, SpeedDrive support it. But if you have any
       other cache you should disable it before formatting DOS partitions
       or reboot computer after formatting.

          The difference in behaviour of part.exe and format.com is that
       part formats partitions by number in partition table and format by
       letter in DOS device list. Therefore before rebooting you shouldn't
       use programs that accesses partitions via DOS, but you can use
       programs that writes to partitions bypassing DOS. For example zpart,
       which compresses and decompresses entire partitions to and from files.

          Limitation: currently this program cannot format logical DOS drives
       from the command line - you have to go to the interactive mode.

    Important issues on installation of a new OS

          Windows 95 and some other operating systems upon installation
       replace your current IPL with their own code. If you have
       Compact or Advanced boot managers installed on your hard drive you
       would not see them at the next boot.

          I have worked on this issue. It should not lead to the loss of
       data, at least with Windows 95. In the worst case you just would have
       to run part.exe and reinstall boot manager. But to ensure that nothing
       will be lost do the following steps before installing new OS:

          - Create a bootable floppy and copy Partition Manager on it.
          - Run Partition Manager and create partition for the new OS.
          - If possible format it using Partition Manager.
          - In Advanced Boot Manager edit boot menu (see example)
          - Save Partition Manager's data to the floppy.
          - Reboot computer and install a new OS

          If MBR will be modified by OS installer review the changes and
       reinstall boot manager. (Press F2 in order to save MBR and install
       Advanced Boot Manager executable code to disk).

    Supported file systems

          Unused partition
          Classical MS-DOS file systems
          Windows 95 FAT-32 file system
          Extended DOS partition
          Making logical drives bootable

    Unused partition

          This simply indicates that entry in partition table is available.
       It doesn't tell anything about free space on disk. You have to figure
       out that yourself.

          However if you specify starting and ending locations of partition
       with type "Unused" Partition Manager will let you format and verify
       the disk space.

          Format takes two options: "/destructive" or "/clean". First one
       performes low level disk format, second one fills disk space with
       zeros.

    Classical MS-DOS file systems

    	0x01, "DOS FAT-12"
    	0x04, "DOS FAT-16 (under 32M)"
    	0x06, "BIGDOS FAT-16 (over 32M)"

       All file systems have the same structure:

       	[Boot Sector]
       	[First copy of FAT]
       	[Second copy of FAT]
       	[Root Directory]
       	[Cluster 2]
       	[Cluster 3]
       	[Cluster 4]
       	...

          Boot sector, FATs, Root Directory, and clusters have fixed sizes,
       which you  can set only when you are formatting the disk.
          Space for all subdirectories and files is allocated by clusters.
       If cluster size is 8 sectors = 4,096 bytes, when you create file with
       size of 1 byte it will get entire 4,096 bytes cluster.
          There is an entry in FAT (File Allocation Table) for each cluster,
       which tells if cluster is free, allocated, or damaged. Therefore size
       of the FAT determines maximum number of clusters.

          FAT-12 file system is limited to 4084 clusters. It is used on the
      floppy disks, but you can also use it on a small hard disk partition.

          FAT-16 was used on early hard disks. Original version could have
       up to 65,000 clusters on partitions up to 32M.

          BIGDOS FAT-16 which was released with DOS 3.31 doesn't have 32M
       limitation and can be as large as 2G. For backward compartibility
       all DOS versions later than 3.31 will accept both FAT-12 and FAT-16
       file systems in the BIGDOS partition.

          This program includes format utility which formats all three file
       system types. It has the following options:

          part -f n [/quick | /destructive] [/l:volume_label]
                    [/c:sect_per_cluster] [/x:max_num_sect | /x:disk]

          If you specify "quick" option, the program will assume that your
       hard disk doesn't have any bad sectors. You can verify disk once, and
       if it doesn't have bad sectors you can then use quick format.

          If you don't specify cluster size it will be selected automatically
       depending on partition size from 4 sectors and up. Here is the table
       for BIGDOS FAT-16 file system:

                    Cluster size         Maximum partition size

       	   1 sector        512 bytes           32M
           *   2 sectors     1,024 bytes           64M        recommended
           *   4 sectors     2,048 bytes          128M       cluster sizes
           *   8 sectors     4,096 bytes          256M        are marked
           *  16 sectors     8,192 bytes          512M         with '*'
           *  32 sectors    16,384 bytes            1G
           *  64 sectors    32,768 bytes            2G
       	 128 sectors    65,536 bytes            4G

          Although you can format disk with all those cluster sizes it's not
       recomended to use very small or very large values. Many programs have
       weird bugs with that. For example, SCANDISK will freeze if cluster
       size is 128, while Norton Disk Doctor seems to work without problems.

          By specifying max_num_sect parameter you can reserve space in FAT
       for the future expansion of the partition. If you type "/x:disk"
       (exactly as it is written) format will make FATs large enough so that
       you can expand you partition to entire disk.

          You can make FAT partition smaller (shrink them). To do that run
       some disk defragmentation utility (like DEFRAG.EXE). Then go to setup
       screen inside part.exe. One of the lines will show the minimum
       partition size, based on the last cluster occupied by data. The value
       should be equal to sum of the file and directory sizes on your disk.
       If it is greater it means, that some hidden files were not moved by
       the defragmentation utility. You have to find those files (for example
       Norton Speed Disk will show their names), remove system and hidden
       attributes and run disk defragmenter again. But be careful with moving
       them, because some programs may use absolute file locations for their
       illigal installation checks.

    Windows 95 FAT-32 file systems

    	0x0B, "Windows 95 FAT-32"

          This file system was designed to support disks larger than 2G, which
       was the limit for FAT-16 file system. FAT-32 partition can be as large
       as 2T (2,048G).

       It has the following structure:

       	[Boot Record (3 sectors)]
       	[Backup Copy of Boot Record]
       	[First copy of FAT]
       	[Second copy of FAT]
       	[Cluster 2]
       	[Cluster 3]
       	[Cluster 4]
       	...

          Root directory on FAT-32 treated as an ordinary directory, and can
       be located anywhere on the disk and doesn't have predefined fixed size
       (unlike FAT-16).

          Options for formatting FAT-32 file system are similar to FAT-16
       options:

          part -f n [/quick | /destructive] [/l:volume_label]
                    [/c:sect_per_cluster] [/x:max_num_sect | /x:disk]

          Strategy for resizing FAT-32 partition is also similar to one for
       FAT-16:

          - Run defragmenter utility on the FAT-32 partition
          - Change partition size in the partition table
          - Enter setup screen and make same changes there
            (make sure they are valid - otherwise they will turn red)
          - Reboot computer and run scandisk to check that everything
            is ok and also to reset amount of free space.

    Extended DOS partition

          Partiton table has space for only four records. To have more than
       four partitions DOS uses Extended DOS partition scheme. This scheme
       allows you to have as much as 23 DOS volumes on one physical drive.
       Unfortunately, native DOS's program FDISK imposes another limitation
       that you cannot have more than one primary (bootable) MS-DOS partition
       on the hard disk. The truth is you CAN have more than one. The problem
       is that MS-DOS's FDISK refuses to create second one for you.

          If you run FDISK it will create one primary partition and then will
       mark the rest of the space as an Extended partition. The first sector
       of the Extended partition is called EMBR (Extended MBR). It has the
       same structure as MBR. Inside of each Extended partition you can have
       one FAT (or NTFS) partition, called logical drive, and another Extended
       partition. For some unknown reason relative sectors of inner extended
       partitions are calculated from the beginning of the outermost partition,
       while relative sectors of FAT partitions are from the beginning of the
       enclosing extended partition.

       Here is an example:

          HD  520 Mb
          ---------------------------------------------------
          Primary FAT-16  120Mb                                [ C: 120Mb ]
          Extended DOS    300Mb -----------------------------
                                FAT-16  100Mb                  [ D: 100Mb ]
                                ExtDOS  200Mb ---------------
                                              FAT-16  200Mb    [ E: 200Mb ]
                                              ---------------
                                -----------------------------
          Linux           100Mb                                [ /  100Mb ]
          ---------------------------------------------------

          Note that the order of partitions on the disk also matters. FAT
       partition must go first. And the extended partition must follow.

          Hint: in the Partition Manager you can use PgUp and PgDn to jump
       between EMBR levels.

          You cannot boot from extended partition, nor from any logical drive
       inside of it. If you try it, the system would simply hang, because its
       boot record unlike other file systems doesn't have any loader code. It
       has only zeros. You can install a "non bootable" dummy boot record,
       which instead of crashing will display a message:

          Extended DOS partition is not bootable.
          Press any key to reboot...

    Making logical drives bootable

          As I mentioned before, you cannot boot from Extended partition or
       from any logical drive contained in it. But what if you need?  The
       solution is simple. All you have to do is to move the record that
       describs logical drive from the EMBR to the primary MBR, and adjust
       size of the Extended partition.  Then you have to set the correct
       number of "sectors prior to partition" in the DOS boot sector,
       whose value is used to load system files. And finally you have to
       run sys.com to install system files on disk.

          Lets see what we can do with our example.

       Variant 1.

          Notice that size of the extended partition was changed and second
       extended partition is gone.

          HD  520 Mb
          ---------------------------------------------------
          Primary FAT-16  120Mb                                [ C: 120Mb ]
          Extended DOS    100Mb -----------------------------
                                FAT-16  100Mb                  [ D: 100Mb ]
                                -----------------------------
          Primary FAT-16  200Mb                                [ E: 200Mb ]
          Linux           100Mb                                [ /  100Mb ]
          ---------------------------------------------------

       Variant 2.

          Here we just moved both records from extended partition to the MBR.

          HD  520 Mb
          ---------------------------------------------------
          Primary FAT-16  120Mb                                [ C: 120Mb ]
          Primary FAT-16  100Mb                                [ D: 100Mb ]
          Extended DOS    200Mb -----------------------------
                                FAT-16  200Mb                  [ E: 200Mb ]
                                -----------------------------
          Linux           100Mb                                [ /  100Mb ]
          ---------------------------------------------------

       Variant 3.

          HD  520 Mb
          ---------------------------------------------------
          Primary FAT-16  120Mb                                [ C: 120Mb ]
          Primary FAT-16  100Mb                                [ D: 100Mb ]
          Primary FAT-16  200Mb                                [ E: 200Mb ]
          Linux           100Mb                                [ /  100Mb ]
          ---------------------------------------------------

    Command line options

    Usage: part [-q] [-d disk] [-command ...]

     part          - Interactive mode
     part -i       - Print IDE disk info
     part -p       - Print partition table
     part -p -r    - Print info recursively
     part -a n     - Activate n-th partition
     part -v n     - Verify n-th partition
     part -f n ... - Format n-th partition
     part -s file  - Save MBR to file
     part -l file  - Load MBR from file
     part -c file  - Compare MBR with file
     part -Reboot  - Reboot computer

     The program returns exit code 0 if there was no errors and/or
     compared objects had no differences (1 is returned otherwise).

    Additional information and help resources

       Partition Manager Home Page

       Partitioning Primer
       Partition Manager FAQ (always up to date)
       Links to partitioning and bootstrap related materials

       comp.os.ms-windows.win95.setup
       comp.os.ms-windows.setup.win95
       comp.os.linux.setup
       comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage

       There are also available different language interfaces. If you are
     using them you should thank the efforts of these people:

       Czech interface: Jiri Kuchta, kuchta@fee.vutbr.cz
       Dutch interface: Eymert Versteegt, jw.versteegt@wxs.nl
       French interface: Patrick Robbe, probbe@mail.dotcom.fr
       German interface: Peter H. Dillinger, dilli@rumms.uni-mannheim.de
       Italian Interface: Claudio Bondavalli, claudiob@iol.it
       Spanish interface: Alberto Cajigas Jr., BeLion007@aol.com
       Swedish interface: Dan Olav Mikael Hultgren, mikhu265@student.liu.se

       However, try not to bother them too much, unless your questions are
     only regarding the translation. All technical questions should be send
     to ranish@intercom.com and only in English.

    Contacting author and copyrights

       This program is a FreeWare. You can freely distibute it.
       Source codes are available for download from my home page.

       Before you send any questions make sure, that you read this help
     and FAQ. Also visit my website to check updated version of the help
     files and see whether the new version of the program already solves
     your problem. I will not answer questions which are listed in FAQ.

       When you send the question, please, include the output of commands
     "part -p -r" and "part -d 2 -p -r" if you have the second disk. Also
     try to clearly tell which operating systems are installed or you are
     planning to install in those partitions.

    Mikhail Ranish ranish@intercom.com
    http://www.users.intercom.com/~ranish
    http://www.ml.brooklyn.cuny.edu/~mranish