File system improvements - now underway

While proper multi partition support in Filecore would be great, wouldn’t it be sufficient to define a Filecore partition entry in the MBR and add simple partition offset support in SDFS and SCSIFS?

I assumed it would confuse things like GPartEd if they weren’t in order – which would negate the benefits of inserting a guard partition covering the FileCore image in the first place. It’s probably worth checking how the Windows and MacOS partition editors handle such a layout as well.

Some Linux partition tools allow you to create partitions where you like, (i.e. different order in table to physical order), and I have seen other tools create partitions out of order when partitions are removed. (e.g. create 4 partitions, delete the second and fourth, recreate the fourth, it gets partition entry 2.) I have never seen a system get confused with this (Linux OS X or Windows). (Though I can’t say I’ve done exhaustive testing.)

It seems unlikely that Linux would allow this and not be able to cope with it. (Linux would be the most important one, because of the possibility of dual booting.)

I’m also reasonably sure that windows partition handling was made robust back with Windows 95.

It seems that if FAT32FS were modified so it didn’t remove a valid ADFS/FC partition on the same drive, and a tool were produced to produce a disk partitioned with ADFS/FC at the start, we would get a useful subset of partition support.

It’s been awhile since there has been update on this.
Any news, does the initial prescription need to be upgraded to codine and amphetamines?
If so would it be possible to donate to assist again?
Or I am willing to provide “a sweetner” if this will assist in freeing up more development time.

We have a new tool now, called !SystemDisc, from Piccolo Systems. Ben Avison made this tool to make a bootable SD card that has been formatted with HForm as one big Filecore disc first.
SystemDisc will add a FAT partition at your choice to a maximum of 3809MB at the start of the disc, and this will then be presented/reserved as a Dosdisc.
The DosDisc image is named “loader” in a directory !Boot when viewed in the SD-card slot with SDFS, or USB SCSI after Right-clicking on the USB-device icon.
My experience with this tool is good, I made a SD-card of 16GB and this one is used for some 4 weeks now, and DiscKnight did not find an error on it yet.
I would now like to see the Multiboot SD-card NOOBS with correct working RISC OS mouse disc refresh without trails al over the screen, as a RISC OS promotor to make more RISC OS fans.