!PackDisc 0.11

Please note that this verion is not compatible with the E+ and F+ disc formats available on RISC OS 4. It will not corrupt the disc, but may bomb out part way through optimisation since various assumtions it makes (constant dir size, number of files per directory etc.) are no longer valid.

This program can potentially increase the free space on any FileCore based filing system. This free space which is created comes from the wasted space in shared fragments. !PackDisc rearranges which files share fragments with each other in such a way as to minimise the remaining wasted space.

PackDisc is ideal on directories which have constant contents and several small files, for example application directories, as the small files can be rearranged more effectively and the space saved will remain saved. It may also be useful for PD libraries or magazine discs or anyone else who wants to use every last sector on a floppy - it can usually save at least a couple of KB from a typical floppy. I saved 11K on a copy of the RISC OS 3 App1 disc. On my whole hard drive I saved about 10MB. [historical note - at the time that was written, a hard drive was typically less than 500MB]

The whole of the re-arrangement is done using high-level filing system calls to minimise the risk of corrupting discs. However, the FileCore bug which can corrupt nearly-full discs *could* rear its ugly head. I have not had any problems with the current version. An early development version *did* cause a corruption of a couple of very large files but these are handled differently now so the corruption should not occur.

Shortcomings of this version include:

If you have any problems, mail me [email link removed]. Future development of PackDisc has been taken over by Patrick Mortara [email link removed], so contact him with any suggestions for future versions, or if you want to get the latest version.
[<-] Back to Steve's Home Page
Page put together by Steve Lee - now "officially abandoned"