Re: HFS Utils?

[spec@vax2.concordia.ca (Mitchell Spector)]

In article themaples@worldnet.att.net (Bruce Maples) writes...

>I have been told that there are no HFS utilities for the GS. Is this
>true? 

    Yes, at present there are no utilities whatsoever for working 
with HFS on the Apple IIgs. This means you cannot repair or even
optimize volumes, not too mention there is no way to 'undelete'
files or folders once you've purged them.

>If so, how hard would it be to write some?  Is HFS very hard to
>work with? What level of interest would there be?

    Well it wouldn't be a trivial task, you would need the proper
documention too. As far as I know, despite a _high_ level of need
and interest for HFS utilities, no one is working on writing some.

    Your only real choice is to connect your IIgs hardrive (or
other writable SCSI device) to a Macintosh. Something like FWB
ToolKit should be able to find HFS partitions and even install
the proper HFS_partition drivers if necessary. 

    I currently have two large HFS partitions on my hardrive,
both of about 220 MB each. I really haven't touched them since
they were created, other than keeping backup copies of my eight
ProDOS partitions (came in handy once, something happened where
my files got cross-linked(?) and nothing was able to repair it).
Until I have access to a Mac, or someone writes HFS utilties, I
doubt I'll do much more with my HFS partitions.

Mitchell Spector
spec@vax2.concordia.ca