    explore2fs, the Linux file system utility for Windows NT
    Copyright (C) 1998  John Newbigin

    This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
    it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
    the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or
    (at your option) any later version.

    This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
    but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
    MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
    GNU General Public License for more details.

    You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
    along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
    Foundation, Inc., 675 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.

!!! W A R N I N G !!!
---------------------

Use write access at your own risk!  Although it seems to work for me, it is 
possible that a bug could cause your filesystem or even disk to become unusable!
Now, with that out of the way, make sure read support is working, then when you 
are feeling clam and collected, try write support.  Test it first on a file
before you try it on a partition if you must.  What ever you do, make sure you 
know how to restore your system should anything go wrong.  That includes both Linux
and NT, and any other partitions you may happen to have.  It is a very good idea to
do a backup before you begin.


What is this program?

This is an explorer like program which can read and interpret the ex2fs filesystem.  
At the moment it does not support drag & drop, but it is planed for future versions 
(once I work out how to do it).


Why is it written in Delphi?

I like Delphi.  It allows great user interfaces to be designed in a very short 
amount of time.  The problem is however that processing large amounts of data, or 
performing pointer arithmetic is difficult and clumsy.  So I decided that I would take 
the challenge and write a useful program in Delphi.


Why is this not a filesystem driver?

Under Windows NT, filesystems are a lot more complex than Windows 95.  It also requires 
a DDK and a currently unsupported FSDK to be bought.  If anybody has spare $1000US I'll 
look into it.


Has it been tested?

I have tested it extensively on my machine.  I have a 512 MB and a 2Gig partition which 
it works on.  These however are only 1k block size.  I have tested 2k and 4k on files 
containing filesystems though.  There has been quite a response from people around the 
world, and the feedback has let to rapid bug fixing.  I have tested extended partitions
up to 8, but I guess any number should work.

I have also tested successfully on a 1Gig scsi disk.

I something doesn't seem to be working, enable full debugging and send me a copy of the 
debug log along with a description of the problem and I will try and fix it.


What doesn't work?

- Fragments.  At the moment I don't know if fragments are actually supported by the Linux 
  kernel, so at this stage there seems no reason to implement them.  If anybody wants them, 
  let me know.

- Symbolic links.  These are currently shown as special files, but can not be followed 
  at the moment.

For a more complete list of features, look at the changes file.

Windows 95
----------

As of version 0.14, there is experimental Windows 95 support.  For various reasons, this
requires the additional DLL diskio.dll.  This is a 16 bit dll which allows access to the 
physical disk sectors.  This has been tested on Windows 95 OSR1 OSR2.1 and Windows 98.

This also requires that the disk contain a boot sector.  For hard disks this will not be a
problem, but if you have a linux floppy, you will have to copy a standard MSDOS boot sector
onto it.  This can be done by the following commands:
- Insert a dos disk in fd0 (or whatever your floppy drive is)
- type: dd if=/dev/fd0 of=/bootsector.dos bs=512 count=1
- Insert your Linux disk, or type: mke2fs /dev/fd0 (to create a new one)
- type: dd of=/dev/fd0 if=/bootsector.dos bs=512 count=1

And you should be right.
Remember too that this provides no locking so it could couse problems if you run more than 
one instance of the program.

Using user names and group names
--------------------------------
If you want to display user names and group names instead of id's, you can select a passwd file
and group file from the options dialog.  First you should export the appropriate files from you
linux partition.  If you don't want to use this feature, remove the file names in the options
dialog.

Note that the same user names and gropus are used for all partitions.

Floppy support
--------------
If you want to use floppy support, you will have to make sure that floppy support is selected
under the general options.  The floppy drive will show up as fda0.If you have a LS-120 drive, 
or other non-floppy floppy drive (ie. not on the floppy bus (meaning IDE or SCSI)) then you may
have it partitioned.  If partitions are found, they will show up as fda1, fda2 etc.




Where do I find the latest version?

There is a homepage at http://jnewbigin-pc.it.swin.edu.au/linux.htm
This page will contain the latest information and versions.

How do I contact the author?

I can be contacted by e-mail: jn@it.swin.edu.au
or snail-mail
  John Newbigin
  8 Robinson Ct.
  North Bayswater  3151
  Vic   Australia

