(See "History" for info on the changes made since the last public release)
Introduction
------------
UnADF is a Shell tool that allows you to extract the files out of an
AmigaDOS OFS/FFS formatted ADF disk image file. With the various versions
of UAE available, ADF files have become very common. An ADF file is simply
the entire data of an Amiga floppy disk saved as a file. UnADF allows you
to save the entire contents (i.e files & dirs) of these ADF files to your
harddrive.
AmigaDOS ADF files are very similar to archives, they contain files just
like archives do, but weren't actually intended for this purpose.
UnADF allows you to quickly obtain files from within ADFs, without having
to resort to device drivers such as fmsdisk.device.
Features
--------
UnADF supports OFS, OFS-Intl, OFS-DirCache, FFS, FFS-Intl and FFS-DirCache
ADF floppy formats. It also supports hard links to files and directories,
that are normally created with the AmigaDOS "makelink" command. Both
Double Density (901120 bytes) and High Density (1802240 bytes) image sizes
are supported.
With the help of xfdmaster.library, UnADF can decompress compressed ADF
files before extracting. xfdmaster.library is not included with UnADF, but
can be obtained from Aminet. UnADF does not require xfdmaster.library and
will work without it.
Notes
-----
Softlinks are currently not supported in this version of UnADF, and all
checksums are ignored, so always check that your data is valid after you
extract it.
UnADF might slow down a little if it encounters an ADF with heavily
fragmented hash chains or data blocks.
But floppies are obsolete!
--------------------------
Just because the medium itself is becoming obsolete, it doesn't mean that the
data on those disks is obsolete too. For example, I bought 9 or 10 commercial
Amiga titles fairly recently, and half of these came on floppy disks! I use
FloppyFlux to store backups of these disks on my harddrive as ADFs. If I
need to get files from them, I use UnADF. I try to avoid them little plastic
floppy disks as much as possible, I'm only interested in the data they
hold. ;)
You can get the latest version (currently 1.2) of FloppyFlux on Aminet at:
disk/bakup/FloppyFlux.lha.
Non-DOS ADF files
-----------------
Not all ADFs are formatted with FFS/OFS, but instead use their own custom
disk format. This includes most games and demos, so UnADF will report these
types of ADF files as non-DOS/corrupt or will report the rootblock as
invalid.
Requirements
------------
020+, OS 3.0+, 2MB of fast memory recommended.
UnADF is *VERY* memory hungry, especially while decompressing ADFs.
Usage
-----
UnADF is very easy to use. There are currently three parameters:
LOWMEM - Tell UnADF not to load the entire ADF file to memory. This option
slows down UnADF a *LOT*! If this option is used, UnADF can't
decompress ADFs, because the entire ADF must be loaded into
memory for decompression.
LIST - Switch, this tells UnADF to list the contents of the ADF only.
DEST - The destination directory. A little note: UnADF doesn't actually
save the contents directly to this directory, but instead creates
a sub-directory inside it, with the name of the disk.
So for example, if an ADF was formatted with the name "Empty", UnADF
will use this name as the name of the sub-directory. If a sub-
directory already exists with this name, then UnADF will append an
extension in the form of <dirname>.<number>, e.g. Empty.001.
Examples: UnADF Store:MyADF.adf DEST=ram: ; save dir to ram:
UnADF dh1:ADisk LIST ; view contents of an ADF
History
-------
1.1 (28.12.99) - Initial release.
1.2 (11.02.00) - UnADF now copies file comments, date stamps and protection
flags. Added at the request of Jan R. Haugan.
- Redesigned the extraction routines. They are now a little
slower, but very memory efficient.
- Added the LOWMEM parameter. This tells UnADF not to load
the entire 900K+ ADF to memory. Only small amounts will
be loaded into memory at any one time.
- Improved error checking while saving files.
- Added support for High Density ADF images. HD support
never made it into version 1.1 because I didn't have a
HD floppy drive to rip one for testing. Special thanks
go to Dirk Stoecker for giving me some tips on how to
create one without needing a HD floppy drive. :-)
Copyright
---------
UnADF is Copyright © 1999 Andrew Bell. All rights reserved.
UnADF is FREEWARE, this means you can copy it as many times as you like
as long as no profit is gained from it's distribution and all of the files
remain together in their original and unmodified state. You are not allowed
to distribute modifed versions of UnADF or it's related files.
With the rise of WinUAE, a lot of illegal ADF files have appeared on the
Internet that contain copyrighted material, mainly games. I received a
lot of emails assuming that FloppyFlux had been designed for storing such
ADFs, let me put the record straight, I DID NOT! Both FloppyFlux and
UnADF were designed for storing and handling personal disk collections
such as PD or magazine floppy disks, and not illegal ADFs from pirate web
sites.
The author does not condone the use of illegal ADFs with UnADF or FloppyFlux.
Author
------
My name is Andrew Bell and you can contact me via email at:
-- andrew.ab2000 bigfoot.com
Or to get the latest version of this program and to see my other work you
can visit my web page at:
-- http://www.andrewb.exl.co.uk
Enjoy! :-)
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