NEWS.TXT

News:

Current Stable Production Release:  1.2.1
Current Beta Release:  1.3.1

Note:  For any changes prior to version 1.0, please see history.txt.

Current Version:
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Version 1.3.1   The MBR is no longer automatically written if the expected                
11/04/2008      MBR is not found.  The MBR is now only written by using
                the command line switches.

                Various warnings have been cleaned up in order to fix the 
                command-line compile.  One fix to the makefile remains.

                Error handling has been added in order to accomodate hard 
                disk and/or controller errors.

Future changes planned for Version 2.0.0:
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
TO-DO:          Complete addition of international language support. 

Future changes planned for Version 1.8.0:
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
TO-DO:

Future changes planned for Version 1.6.0:
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
TO-DO:          Increased the extended partition buffer size by 1 to support
                24 extended partitions.

Future changes planned for Version 1.4.0:
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
TO-DO:          Investigate the possibility of resetting the boot sector
                bytes 510 and 511 to 0x00 instead of filling the boot
                boot sector(s) with 0xf6 when creating a partition.  This
                would make a file system easier to repair if a drive was
                accidentally fdisked.

TO-DO:          Fixed a bug that prevented option 5 from being displayed,
?????           on the main menu, when more than one physical drive exists.

TO-DO:          Continued adding support for international languages.

TO-DO:          Check for fdisk functionality if the only hard disk is on
                the second IDE controller.

TO-DO           Fixed the ported BootEasy code.  

TO-DO:          Regression Testing
                        1.  Maxtor 245MB hard disk (7245AT)
                        2.  Fujitsu 20GB hard disk (MPF3204AT)
                        3.  Western Digital 180GB hard disk (WD1800JB)

TO-DO:          Fix drive label modification issues.

TO-DO           Fix partition start and end corruption problems with
                some non-dos partition types.

Future changes planned for Version 1.3.2:
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
TO-DO           Change the int 0x13 extension determination code.

                Add the partition id bytes.

Version History:
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Version 1.3.0   Bug fixes provided by H. Peter Anvin in order to fix a
7/17/2003       problem with the interrupt 0x13 extensions detection code.

Version 1.2.1   Some clean-ups of help screens.
04/06/2003
                Fixed a bug that prevented all FAT32 boot sector information
                from being erased when a new partition is created that starts
                at the exact same location as an old FAT32 partition.

Version 1.2.0   Improved the algorithms that calculate the partition size by
03/04/2003      percentage, when utilizing the command-line.

                Improved the command-line help screens.

                Fixed the bug that prevented the deletion of non-dos
                partition types.

Version 1.1.4   Replaced the Delete_Logical_Drive() function with the code
BETA RELEASE    from version 1.01 and modified the function to work with the
12/11/2002      new partition buffer structure.  The function that this code
                replaces caused massive drive corruption.

                Verified that the creation of partitions, by percentage
                within the interactive user interface, now results in
                partitions that have the same size as those from "other"
                partition management utilities.

                Fixed the bug that prevented non-dos logical drives from
                being displayed with the /dump and /info command-line option.

                Maximum 2GB FAT16 partition size is now 2047MB, for
                reasons of compatibility.  4GB FAT16 partitions now have
                a maximum size of 4095MB, also for reasons of compatibility.

                Extensive testing was performed with the following hard
                drive:  Fujitsu 20GB hard disk (MPF3204AT)

Version 1.1.3   Usage percentages, within the interactive user interface,
BETA RELEASE    are now displayed correctly and add up to 100%.
12/10/2002
                The Determine_Free_Space() code from version 1.01 has been
                modified to work with the new partition buffer structures
                and merged into the code.  This has been done do to reports
                of partition overlapping problems that people have been
                experiencing with the newer beta releases.  Since the
                old Determine_Free_Space() function has been proven to work
                without any partition overlaps, it was easier to merge that
                function as opposed to fixing the new function.
                                                               
Version 1.1.2   Modified the partitioning algorithms and free space
BETA RELEASE    computations, to create partitions, so that they are 100%
11/30/2002      compatible with "other" partitioning utilities when creating
                partitions by size.  Similar modifications still need to be
                made when creating partitions by percentage.

                Fixed a bug with the /auto switch that appears when there is
                still free space left on the hard drive after 24 partitions
                have been created.  Before this bug was fixed, a buffer
                overflow was possible on larger hard disks.  The program
                would keep attempting to create partitions even after Z:
                was passed because it was formerly programmed to keep
                creating partitions until all space was used.  In order to
                fix this problem, Determine_Drive_Letters() has been
                modified so that it now returns the ASCII code for the last
                logical drive letter created.

                Fixed a major drive lettering bug in the
                Determine_Drive_Letters() function.

                The /REBOOT command-line option now calls the
                Write_Partition_Tables() function.  If no changes have been
                made, this function simply returns.

                Fixed a bug that resulted in the /LOG command-line option
                creating the wrong partition type.

                Some regression testing was performed with the following
                hard drives while setting the version emulation to 4 and 98:
                        1.  Maxtor 245MB hard disk (7245AT)

Version 1.1.1   The versioning numbers have been slightly modified.  The
BETA RELEASE    version number format is now x.y.z.  Where x is the major
11/10/2002      version number, y is the minor version number, and z is the
                release number.  If y is an even number, the release is
                considered stable.  Otherwise, if y is an odd number, the
                release is a beta version.

                Cleaned up some source code.

                Removed "FreeDOS MBR" message from normal MBR.

                Fixed a bug that caused the partition tables to be written
                twice when exiting the interactive user interface.

                Continued adding support for international languages.

                Fixed a bug that resulted in an incorrect maximum number of
                hard disks being reported by the
                Get_Hard_Drive_Parameters() function.

                Fixed an overflow bug that erased ext int 0x13 flag
                information by writing 0's to next hard disk's buffer.
                This bug tended to nullify support for > 8GB hard disks when
                they were not the first and only hard disk available.

                Hard disk partition information displayed by the /status
                command and via option 5 of the interactive user interface
                now supports sizes up to 999,999 MB.

                Modified the introductory warning message, for large disk
                support, that stated that FreeDOS will be unable to access
                FAT32 partitions.  Since FreeDOS is now able to access FAT32
                partitions, FreeDOS has been removed from the warning
                message.

                Fixed usage percentage displayed for logical drives in the
                extended partition.

                Fixed logical drive usage percentage displayed when using
                the /dump switch from the CLI (command line interface).

                Restored original command-line parsing code.  The new code
                limited the capability to stack command line switches on
                one command line.

                Restored original environment scanning and fdisk.ini parsing
                code.  The new code did not properly scan the environment
                and, when compressed, did not reduce the size of the
                executable any appreciable size.

                All changes prior to Version 1.0 are now recorded in
                history.txt.

                There is now a util directory that will contain all batch
                files necessary to simplify maintenance.

                \util\makezip.bat is a modified mkzip.bat file, created by
                Tom Ehlert, that creates the distribution zip file.

                \util\devprep.bat prepares Free FDISK for development by
                preparing CATS and the bootloaders.

                \util\zipprep.bat copies the fdisk.exe file into the
                \program directory and prepares the source tree for
                being zipped.

Version 1.10    This release and all future releases of Free FDISK will be
BETA RELEASE    identifiable as production or beta software by the tenths
7/24/2002       place of the version number.  For example, version 1.1
                would be a beta release, version 1.2 would be a production
                release, version 1.313a would be a beta release, etc.

                Started utilizing CATS 3.96 for international language
                support.  International language support will be completed
                in a future release.

                Tom Ehlert has ported BootEasy to NASM.  The bootcode.h file
                is no longer used.

                Added a define statement, and additional code, that can
                be used to turn on various text messages indicating that
                a release is a beta version.

                The /MBR switch writes the standard boot loader and the
                /BMBR switch writes the BootEasy boot loader.

Version 1.04    Not a public release.
7/10/2002
                Bug fixes for version 1.03, submitted by Tom Ehlert.

Version 1.03    Not a public release.
6/20/2002
                More changes submitted by Tom Ehlert. 

                A new bootloader has been written, by Tom Ehlert, that
                boots the active partition.

Version 1.02    Not a public release.
4/11/2002
                Floating point variables have been removed, by Tom Ehlert.
                As a result, the size of the compressed executable has been
                reduced by approximately 10k.

                Tom Ehlert has also modified the help system such that if
                the help information has been redirected to a file, the
                /nopause switch is no longer necessary to prevent the
                redirected text from being paused.

                Miscellaneous code modifications and optimizations
                by Tom Ehlert.

                Tom Ehlert has also cleaned up some of the source code
                through the use of pointers to structures instead of
                utilizing the raw structures.

Version 1.01    Due to the danger of the /CLEAR and /CLEARALL commands,
4/9/2002        the drive number is now a required parameter with these two
                commands.  If the drive number is not entered, the program
                will abort.  If the program aborts, an error level 9 is
                returned.

                The program will now abort if a size >0 is not specified
                when using the /PRI, /PRIO, /LOG, LOGO, and /EXT commands.
                If the program aborts, an error level 9 is returned.

                Added the CHECKEXTRA option to the fdisk.ini file.  By
                disabling this feature, Free FDISK will no longer check
                for an extra cylinder of drive space past the reported
                end of the drive.  This option was added to accomodate
                hard drives with a flaw in the firmware and defaults to ON.

Version 1.01    Not a public release
Pre 1
3/22/2002       Fixed a bug that resulted in FAT32 partitions being formatted
                at a former partition size and not at the current partition
                size.  This was due to the backup boot sector not being
                cleared when the drive was repartitioned.

                Fixed many "one-off" bugs in the Determine_Free_Space()
                function.

                Modified the partition creation functions to more
                aggressively utilize all of the space on a hard disk.

Version 1.0     Fixed a bug that resulted in option 5, on the main menu, not
11/20/2001      being displayed if a second drive is being emulated.
                
                Fixed a bug that created partitions that were larger than the
                allowed size, for the partition type.

                Fixed a bug that resulted in an incorrect size, of an
                emulated drive, being displayed when the version <= 6.

                Fixed a bug that displayed an incorrect maximum available
                space if 4 GB FAT 16 partition support was enabled.

