|
| (Current version is: 14.5, released 20-06-2017) |
|
|
|
|
| Home | Download | Buy Now | CDrom/USB | Documentation | Support | History | About | DFSee |
|
|
|
DFSee is NOT free software, however a fully functional evaluation version is available without requiring immediate registration. For regular use several licence models are available, starting with a single-user individual registration for just € 49
|
DFSee is a complete replacement for the partitioning tools as
found with DOS, OS/2, Win9x, Windows-NT/2000/XP/7/8/9/10 and Linux.
It is also a replacement for the LVM utility that comes
with eComStation, ArcaOS 5.x and all OS/2 versions 4.50 or newer.
Only the more obscure features like disk-spanning is not supported.
Apart from the standard create/delete type of functions there are a lot
of special commands to display information and fix all kinds of problems
related to partition-tables and LVM information. A fully interactive
partition-table editor is included as well (PTEdit), both for classic
MBR-style partitiong as the more recent GPT (Guid Partition Tables).
Finally, the FDISK functionality combined with the scripting capabilities is being used by large organisations for automatic (and unattended) roll-out scenarios.
An often used function here is the DFSDISK command/menu-item/script that automate the
collection of needed information to 'UNDO' an accidental FDISK operation
or other partitioning related disasters.
Another important feature is the ability to save and restore ALL partitioning
information in a regular file that you can keep as a backup on a diskette
so recovery operations will be MUCH easier.
Two main functions are available:
| IMAGING |
Whole disks, partitions or parts of partition can be saved to
an imagefile, either RAW or in a compressed format.
The imagefiles can be restored to the same or a different location
resulting in backup or copy functionality.
The compressed images can be opened for directory/file browsing, to view or to
retrieve individual files from such a backup image.
This works for partition images as well as full-disk images.
For large images, and using removable media to store them, it is possible to limit the size of the generated files and create multiple numbered files for one image. For direct writing to removable media like diskettes, CDR or DVD-R (streaming) it will prompt for media-change too. |
| CLONING |
Cloning can make an exact copy of (part of) a partition or disk to
another area on the same or another disk. This can be used as a
very fast backup facility (speeds of 30 MB/sec are not uncommon)
and to move partitions arround. Check the CLONE, MOVE and COPY commands
and menu-items ...
On the bootable CD, the bootimage uses an Ultra-DMA driver to allow maximum speeds on modern ultra-DMA IDE disks. |
For both imaging and cloning, DFSee can use internal allocation information from the filesystem structures to skip unused areas (SMART clone/image) minimizing imagesize and speeding up the process.
These DFSee functions are comparable to programs like Norton GHOST and PowerQuest DriveImage
This is an easy to use and powerful way to access files in filesystems that may otherwise be inaccesible, either beacues there is some filesystem damage that prevents it from being 'mounted' in the normal way, or because you need to access it from an operating system that does NOT have a driver for this type of filesystem.
Once in the browser, you can navigate through the directory structure and edit/view/copy one or more of the presented files.
This feature is implemented for FAT, HPFS, JFS and NTFS, but on those filesystems it is a very powerful tool.
It is operated either using the user-friendly BROWSE interface, where you navigate to the files to be recovered, or by using the underlying commands directly for maximum flexibility abd effectiveness.
It works by finding all deleted or normal files (DELFIND/FILEFIND), and then letting the user make a selection based on a wild-card filespecification and a recoverability outlook percentage (DELSHOW, or through the BROWSER). The actual recover operation will copy the matching files to a specified directory, if possible on another disk (RECOVER).
You can find the file-recover and undelete functions in the menu as well, in the specific 'Mode=...' submenus for the filesystems that support it.
This includes boot-sectors, superblocks and low-level directory
structures. For most supported filesystems some specific commands
are available that fix common problems with that filesystem.
To support a large number of possible filesystems, DFSee uses
specific modes of operation. Every mode has its own set of
dedicated commands and recognized data formats (sector types).
Generic commands (and sector types) are available in all modes.
On selecting a data-source (disk, partition, volume) DFSee will
try to recognize the involved filesystem and activate support
for it automatically.
The most important modes are:
| FDISK | for partitioning work, default active at startup |
| HPFS | native filesystem on OS/2, eComStation, ArcaOS |
| FAT | classic PC filesystems including FAT32 and VFAT |
| EFAT | Enhanced FAT filesystem intended for huge media |
| NTFS | native filesystem on Windows-NT or Windows-2000 |
| JFS | journaled filesystem on OS/2, eCS or ArcaOS |
| EXT2/3/4 | native filesystem on Linux, EXT3/4 are journaled |
| REISER | journaled filesystem on Linux by Hans Reiser |
| XFS | the 'X' terabyte journaled filesystem on Linux |
| HFS | the journalled filesystem HFS+ for MAC OSX |
| AUX | Auxilary mode for unrecognized data |
Commands specific to a mode are available in that mode only, except for the FDISK commands that are available all the time just as all the generic commands are.
DFSee can access data on hard-disks, operating-system volumes like diskettes or CDROM and files, inclusing DFSee compressed images (.IMZ) and VirtualBox disk images (.VDI)
Only use DFSee and any function in it, if you know what you are doing,
or when instructed by someone who does!
Really READ warning and confirmation messages, don't just acknowledge them!
| Home | Download | Buy Now | CDrom/USB | Documentation | Support | History | About | DFSee |
| (dfsee page) | DFSee, Disk analysis, maintenance and recovery utility |
| Follow @jvw_dfsee on Twitter | Views: 384263 |
|
Created by Jan van Wijk: May 2005, last update: 17-07-2017 |
|
