SCOUG OS/2 For You - May 1995

GammaTech Utilities for OS/2

Version 3.0

by Gary Granat

IBM and Microsoft introduced the High Performance File System (HPFS) with OS/2 Version 1.2. Many of us switched to HPFS, and found it to be a major improvement. HPFS was the first accessible1 file system for desktop computers that was designed, from the beginning, to address the needs of users with large to very large hard disk subsystems. Compared to the File Allocation Table (FAT) file system, it was a major advance, allowing for file names which didn't have to conform to the prevailing "8.3" naming convention, and with provisions inherent to the file system for mysterious elements called "extended attributes." Many of us reformatted our hard drives for HPFS and never looked back.

The only discomfort in making the switch was that there were literally no utilities available to cope with this new file system in the event of some sort of failure, and precious little in the way of facilities - only a special version of CHKDSK - for monitoring the health of the file system. As we early adopters discovered, the new file system was quite robust and had some very interesting "self-healing" characteristics, and most of us were able to live without file system management utilities. That is not to say, however, that we were comfortable with this situation.

Contemporaneous with the release of OS/2 Version 1.3, a small start-up company in Edmond, OK (a suburb of Oklahoma City) called GammaTech released a set of HPFS tools called the GammaTech Utilities. The tool set wasn't as extensive as the Norton Utilities for DOS, although this was a frequent comparison. But, there was an HPFS defragmentation tool, a file system test utility, and several other useful tools in both Presentation Manager and character-mode forms. A collective sigh of relief from HPFS users was heard throughout OS/2-land.

OS/2 has gone through several major transformations since GammaTech's first release, and the Utilities have, for the most part, kept pace with these changes. They now serve the needs of both HPFS and FAT file system users and have expanded to seven tools which rely on OS/2's Presentation Manager and Workplace Shell and fifteen "command line" utilities.

Any market niche worth its salt is bound to have more than one entry eventually. GammaTech is no longer the only available set of OS/2 file system utilities. Not withstanding that they are no longer unique, the GammaTech Utilities still warrant a close look, especially when a major new release happens. Which brings us ("finally," I can hear some of you saying) to GammaTech Utilities Version 3.0. Since I did a quick overview of the Utilities about a year ago, it seemed natural to do an update.

Evolution, Not Revolution

The major news with this release is that there isn't much apparent news. In fact, some of you might conclude, at first, that this latest release of the Utilities should be called Version 2.2 instead of Version 3. Experience with the new release, though, discloses that while the changes in Version 3 are subtle, they are both important and pervasive, and that is sufficient to justify the new release nomenclature.

The Version 3 manual devotes eight pages to a description of the changes made to the Utilities. We cannot devote the necessary space in this newsletter to a comprehensive review of all the changes, but these are some of the ones that caught my eye:

• In general, performance has been improved throughout the suite.
• The product structure and the installation procedure have been restructured to permit electronic distribution of corrective service via CompuServe, BBS's and other electronic means.
• Support has been added for HPFS versions 2.3 and 2.4, and for the IBM LAN Server 4.0 HPFS386 enhancements. This includes support for volumes which exceed 2 gigabytes in size.
• Additional versatility has been added to many of the tools - for example, the ability to specifically include (or exclude) files to participate in the HPFS optimization process.
• The FAT optimizer now includes a graphic display of the optimization process and incorporates a "display-only" option with a trigger parameter which only initiates optimization if fragmentation exceeds a specified level.
• The Find, Attribute, and Delete utilities have now been combined into a single extremely useful facility. GammaTech calls it the Files utility (more on this later).
• The Sector Editor (SEdit) is now a separate facility from GTDisk, making it more accessible and useful - when you need it, which, with luck, is never. SEdit now includes a partition table editor, should you need such capabilities (and feel brave enough to use it).
• GTDisk has also received attention:
  • The BadSectr utility has been merged into GTDisk to provide simplified recovery operations when it is not possible to boot OS/2 in the normal fashion.
  • HPFS recover functions have been extensively reworked for ease of use and to provide additional recovery options.
  • The general text mode menu has been revised for easier readability and use.
• A new utility, DiskMap, has been added to provide a graphical display of the layout of any volume on your system.
• Another new utility, HexDump, allows the conversion of binary files into ASCII readable text. The converted text can be viewed and edited using a standard text editor; then HexDump can be used to convert the edited file back into binary format.
• Undelete has received its share of enhancements. Performance has been improved for both HPFS volume analysis and in undeleting files on FAT volumes. In addition:
  • When available, the timestamps for files on FAT volumes are displayed and restored FAT volumes include timestamp values, if possible.
  • GammaTech Undelete now uses the OS/2 Undelete feature if it is enabled; users have the option to undelete files from either the Undelete directory or by using the GammaTech undelete feature.
  • Recovery logic has been enhanced, allowing the recovery of files which were not recoverable with previous versions.

And these are just some of the highlights.

To Be Continued...

We'll finish off next month with a sort of "super" Seek and Scan Files and DiskMap for a graphical representation of your disk(s).

If you don't want to wait, the GammaTech Utilities should be available at Office Solutions, probably at something less than the list price of $149. They are also available from Indelible Blue. I recently received a copy of their "new" catalog which lists their regular price as $115.00.

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