BOOT.TXT
last update by Roedy Green 1997/01/21

Purpose
*******

BOOTSAVE and BOOTREST protect you in case you accidentally
damage your hard disk master boot sector.  BOOTCHK checks if any
damage has been done.

In the master boot sector is stored the code that gets your
machine going when you first power it on, the partition table of
how big your various partitions are, and in some cases it
contains information about disk geometry (heads, cyls etc).

Protects against damage to the partition table or boot sector
done by rogue programs, viruses or accidents with tools like
Norton NU.  This version does NOT save the boot sectors for each
partition.

How Do You Use It
*****************

Insert an formatted floppy into A: then type:

BootSave A:\Boot.Sav

It will then create a small file called Boot.Sav in the root
directory of your floppy.  This contains 4 bytes of information
about your disk geometry followed by a 512 byte image of your
master boot sector.  The geometry information is used to prevent
you from accidentally restoring the boot track from one machine
onto another machine with a different type of disk.

You may also store this file or hard disk with:

BootSave C:\Boot.Sav

However you may find that if your boot track in damaged, you might
have trouble accessing the C:\Boot.Sav file, so make sure you also
have an A:\Boot.Sav.

Label the disk with the name of the machine it come from.  If
later you suspect the master boot sector may have been damaged
on contaminated, boot from a floppy and insert a floppy disk
containing the file BootRest.Com and the file Boot.Sav.

Then type

BootRest A:\Boot.Sav

You will then have to reboot before the corrected parameters
take effect.  See CHKBOOT.BAT for a realistic way to handle this
all automatically.  ChgBoot.bat will delete the boot.sav file, 
allowing you to bypass the automatic restoration.  Invoke it before
you make deliberate changes to the partitions or boot track.


In your autoexec.bat file you can put:

BootChk C:\Boot.Sav /Q
If errorlevel 1 GoTo Trouble

To check that the boot sector has not been tampered with.  The
/Q option suppresses all but the most crucial messages.

I have included a file called CHKBOOT.BAT that automatically
invokes all three utilities as needed.  Invoke it in your
Autoexec.Bat.

Why Use It
**********

You may accidentally clobber your boot track.  If you have done
a BootSave, you can have it back in minutes.  Otherwise you will
lose the entire contents of your hard disk.

You may accidentally fool around with FDISK and wreck your
paritions.  BootRest can put the partition table back the way it
was.  This may rescue your data.

A virus might infect your boot sector.  BootRest will get rid of
it.

Windows 95 might destroy your multi-boot to other
operating systems.  Bootsave will easily restore it.


GETTING THE LATEST VERSION
**************************

Look for the latest version at my Web site:
  http://mindprod.com

The latest version is on the Internet via FTP or HTTP at 
garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/bootutil/bootv??.zip

Trouble Shooting
****************

> I used BootRest, but it complained the disk geometry was wrong.

You probably did BootSaves from several different computers.
You then failed to label the disks and used a disk from the
wrong computer.  You must use the disk that was done on the
computer you are trying to rescue.  BootRest checks that the
number of heads and sectors etc of the disk you are restoring to
matches the disk the BootSave was done on.

If for some reason the INT 13 is giving the wrong geometry
BECAUSE the boot sector is gibbled, you have a Catch-22
situation.  In that case, you could modify the BootRest code by
putting a semicolon in front of the CALL CHECKGEOM to turn it
into a comment, and reassemble.  This would be dangerous, so I
am not making this easy on purpose.

> I accidentally reformatted by hard disk with FORMAT C: without
> the /S. I used BootRest, but the C: partition was still unbootable,
> and command.com, IO.SYS and MSDOS.SYS were still missing.
> None of my files came back either.  Your stupid program doesn't
> work!

BootRest saves only one tiny 512 byte sector near the start of
your disk.  This is the only thing it can repair.  The current
version does not even save the boot sectors on the front of each
partition.  If you want to make your C: partition bootable
again, use Norton NDD 4.5 or DiskTool 6.0.  You can also try
booting from floppy and typing SYS C:.  To recover from massive
losses of files, there is no subsitute for a tape backup system
with daily backups.

Perhaps in a future version I will save all boot sectors for
each partition.  This job is complicated by the extensions that
SpeedStor and Ontrack Disk Manager make to the partition table.


>I crashed by disk without making a BOOTSAVE file first.  What
>can I do now?

BOOTSAVE is prophylactic.  It is useless for correcting
trouble if you have not used it PRIOR to the trouble. You
may be SOL, but things you can try are: FDISK /MBR and the
Norton Utilities Disk Doctor, which may be able to
recreate damaged boot sector.


Author
******

BOOTSAVE, BOOTREST and BOOTCHK are copyrighted but may be freely
used for any purpose except military.  MASM source is available.
If you pass the files on, PLEASE PASS ON THIS DOCUMENTATION TOO.

Please report bugs and problems.

Shareware Status
****************

BOOTSAVE BOOTREST and BOOTCHK are shareware.  To register your
copy please mail $10 US or Canadian cheque payable to Canadian
Mind Products, money order payable to Canadian Mind Products.

BOOTSAVE REGISTRATIONS
Roedy Green
Canadian Mind Products
#208 - 525 Ninth Street
New Westminster, BC Canada
V5H 2N6
telephone (604) 435-3052
mailto:roedy@mindprod.com
http://mindprod.com

Sorry we can no longer accept credit cards. The company was
wiped out by criminals and we are just a thread of our former
selves. Personal cheques are fine.  Please make them payable to
Canadian Mind Products.  For some reason everyone wants to send
cheques made out to me personally.

Please mention the program title since we sell many other products.
It would also be helpful if you mentioned the URL or source of where
you got your shareware copy.  I want to make sure that site is kept
kept up to date.

We in return will send you the latest version complete
with MASM source for CMOSSAVE, CMOSREST, CMOSCHK, REBOOT,
NEED, BOOTSAVE, BOOTREST and BOOTCHK.  We will also
include a 1.44 MB diskette full of the source code for the
complete CMP suite of other utilities.

If you don't register, and continue to use BOOTSAVE, we will not
do anything mean to you.  We don't even want you to feel
unusually guilty.  It is theft, however.  Your mom might not
approve if she knew.

Consider that if you DO register, that supports the creation of
more shareware software such as this.


SITE LICENSES
*************

If you wish a site license to use combined
CMOSSAVE/BOOTSAVE on multiple machines you can compute the
cost using the following formula:

Unit cost = $10 * sqrt( 1/n ) where n is the number of copies.

Total cost = $10 * n * sqrt( 1/n ) rounded the nearest dollar if
you wish.

count    unit  total cost
1      $10.00  $10.00
2       $7.07  $14.14
3       $5.77  $17.32
4       $5.00  $20.00
5       $4.47  $22.36
6       $4.08  $24.49
7       $3.78  $26.46
8       $3.54  $28.28
9       $3.33  $30.00
10      $3.16  $31.62
15      $2.58  $38.73
20      $2.24  $44.72
25      $2.00  $50.00
30      $1.83  $54.77
40      $1.58  $63.25
50      $1.41  $70.71
75      $1.15  $86.60
100     $1.00  $100.00
200     $0.71  $141.42
250     $0.63  $158.11
500     $0.45  $223.61

500 copies is considered an unlimited site license for $223.61

Unlimited licence would entitle you to a non-exclusive
irrevocable worldwide licence to use, copy and distribute
BOOSTAVE/CMOSSAVE within your own organization.  You would
not have the right to sell it to other parties. However,
if you were a retailer, or manufacturer, it would give you
the right to install it on any machines you sell.  If you
were a consultant, it would give you the right to install
it on any machines you service.

You may modify the source code to your own requirements,
but the name and address of Canadian Mind Products must
not be removed from the executable code COM file.
However, our name and address need not display when
BOOTSAVE/CMOSSAVE is run. BOOTSAVE/CMOSSAVE must be used
for non-military purposes only with the exception of U.N.
sanctioned peace keeping missions.

-30-
