Contents

The following Help Topics are available:

Basic Usage

Loading and Saving Fault Tolerance Information

Editing Fault Tolerance Set information

Editing Disk Information

Menu Options

File Menu

Edit Menu

Buttons

Make FT Set

Commit FT Set

Add Drive

Exit

List Boxes

Disks

Partitions

FT Set Information

FT Set Member Information

New FT Set Information

For Help on Help, Press F1


Loading Registry Information
Loading and Saving Fault Tolerance Information

Loading Local FT Information

Loading Remote FT Information

Saving changes to the disk and FT information


Loading Local Registry
Loading Local FT Information

By default, FtEdit will read disk information in the local registry and display it. If the last machine you read information from was the local machine and you wish to reload local information, choose the Reload FT Information option from the Edit Menu.

If you have been accessing registry information on a remote machine, you will need to use the Load New FT Information option instead of the Reload Disk Key option.

In order to read and display the disk and FT information from a registry by default all that is required is guest access to the system, however in order to save changes you will need have administrative privileges on the system.


Loading Remote Registry Information
Loading Remote FT Information

To load and edit disk key information from a remote registry, select the Load New FT Information option from the Edit Menu. You will be prompted for a machine name, enter the name and click on OK to continue or CANCEL to abort. If you have adequate permissions on the remote computer the disk key information from its registry will be read in and displayed.  This option can be used to read back in information in the local registry after you have read or edited a remote registry. To do this, simply enter the name of the local machine when prompted for a machine name.

In order to read and display the disk and FT information from a registry by default all that is required is guest access to the system, however in order to save changes you will need to be an administrator on the local system.


Saving changes to the disk and ft information

To save changes made to the currently listed disk and fault tolerance sets, select the Save Changes to System option in the Edit Menu. This option will save the new FT information to the registry  from which it was originally read. At the same time the old FT information will be saved to a backup key in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM called OLDDISK1. If OLDDISK1 already exists, the current information will be saved to OLDDISK2 and so on.

If you find you have made mistakes in editing the information and need to restore the old value, you can use REGEDT32.EXE to replace the DISK key with the OLDDISKX key.


Editing Fault Tolerance Set information

Creating an FT Set

Deleting an FT Set


Creating an FT Set

To create a new FT set, select Create FT Set from the Edit menu or click on the Make Ft Set button. A pop-up dialog will appear, prompting you to select the type of FT set you wish to create. Select the type of FT set you wish to add and click on the OK button or select the cancel button to abort. Once you have started making an FT set, the Create Ft Set menu option will be grayed out and the Make Ft Set button will change to a cancel button.

Once you have selected the type of FT set, you can add partitions to the set by double clicking on a partition description in the partitions list box. Once a partition has been added, it will be listed in the New Ft Set list box and the partition description will be marked as used by putting *s around it. At any time you may abort the process by clicking on the Cancel button. Once you have completed your FT set, click on the Commit FT Set button or select the Commit FT Set option in the Edit Menu.


File Menu

Open

Save

Exit


Open

This option is currently disabled. In future versions of FtEdit it will allow you to open a saved disk key or system hive and extract the disk and FT information.


Save

This option is currently disabled. In future versions of FtEdit it will allow you to save edited disk and FT information to a file.


Exit

Exit Ftedit. Note that exiting Ftedit will prompt you to  save any changes to the registry made since the last save.


Edit Menu

Create FT Set

Commit FT Set

Add Drive

Delete FT Set

Delete Drive

Save Changes to System

Reload FT Information

Load New FT Information


Create FT Set

Choose this option to create a new FT set definition. For more information on creating an FT set, see the topic Creating an FT Set. Once this option has been chosen, the menu option will be grayed out and the Make FT Set Button will change to a Cancel button.


Commit FT Set

Choose this option when you have finished defining a new FT set. It will make an FT set out of the partitions listed in the New FT Set information box and merge it with any other FT sets. Before choosing this option, you can abort the creation of a new FT set by clicking on the cancel button. Once this option is chosen, the only way to remove the new set will be to delete it. This option ONLY saves the created FT set to the FT information in memory, if you exit FtEdit without saving the information to the system, the changes will be lost.


Add Drive

You can use this option to create a phantom drive when you are missing one drive out of the set and need to recreate the set definition so you can regenerate the stripe set. Once this option has been chosen, you will need to select an existing partition that is part of the stripe set so it can be used as a template for the partition on the phantom drive. To do this, find the partition you wish to duplicate and double click on the partition description in the Partitions list box. Please note that no drives created by this option will ever be recognized by disk administrator, as they will not correspond to an existing physical drive. If you have added a new physical drive you should run Disk Administrator to make sure the drive information is added to the registry correctly.


Delete FT Set

Selecting this option will delete the FT set that is currently selected in the FT Set Information window.


Delete Drive

Selecting this option will delete the disk that is currently selected in the Disks window. Trying to delete a disk that is part of an FT set will result in an error, as will trying to delete a drive when it is the only one listed in the registry.


Deleting an FT Set

To delete an FT set definition, select the FT set you wish to delete in the FT Set Information window and then select the Delete FT Set option from the Edit Menu.


Save Disk Key
Save Changes to System

Selecting this option will save the current disk and FT set information to the registry that it was originally read from, either the local registry or a remote registry. If you do not have the necessary permissions to write to the SYSTEM hive of the registry you are editing, this option will fail.


Reload Disk Key
Reload FT Information

Selecting this option will dump all changes made since the last time you saved the disk key and reload the disk and FT information from the last registry you accessed. To read information from a different registry (either remote or local), select the Load New FT Information option.


Load Remote Disk Key
Load New FT Information

This option will prompt you for the name of a computer who disk and FT information you wish to edit. This can be any machine to which you have network access or the local machine. A dialog box will prompt you for the machine name.


Disks

This box displays the drives in a system, showing the following information:

Disk #	The order the drives are listed in the registry, starting with 0

Signature	A 32 bit unsigned integer used to uniquely identify a drive

Selecting a drive by clicking on it with the mouse will cause the partitions list box to display the partitions on that drive. By default drive 0 will be selected.


Partitions

This list box displays basic partition information for the drive selected in the Disks list box. This information includes:

Partition ID	The partition identifier assigned to the drive by disk administrator. Normally,

partitions will be assigned IDs in the order they appear in the list box, but

in some cases the ID numbers will differ.

Drive Letter	If a drive letter has been permanently assigned to this partition using Disk

Administrator, it will be listed here. Otherwise this will be blank.

Partition Size	The size of the partition in megabytes.

FT Group	If the partition is a member of an FT group, the group number will be listed here,

The FT Group number is the same for all partitions in a FT set. Otherwise it will

read N/A.

FT Member	If this partition is a member of an FT group, this number will reflect the order the

partitions are listed in the FT set.

When not in the process of creating an FT set or adding a drive, double clicking on a partition entry will display a dialog with more information on the FT set.


FT Set Information

This list box contains an entry for each FT set defined in the registry. Any set listed here has been added to the disk key information maintained by Ftedit, although it may not yet have been saved into the registry. The following is listed for each set:

FT Set	The FT set number, which is based upon the order the set appears in the

registry and may not be the same as the FT Group number listed in the

partition descriptions. Note that this also may not correspond to the FT

Set number that disk administrator assigns to it.

FT Type	The type of FT set, either a Mirror set, Volume Set, Stripe set or Stripe set

with parity.


FT Set Member Information

This list box displays member information for the currently selected FT Set in the FT Set listbox. The following information for each member is displayed:

Disk Number	The disk that the partition is on. This value corresponds to the Disk # entry

in the Disk information listbox.

Partition ID	The partition ID, this number corresponds to the partition ID in the

Partitions listbox.


New FT Set Information

This listbox displays each member of an newly created FT set as it is added. The list box title will also change during the creation of an FT set to display the kind of FT set being created. The following values are listed for each member:

Disk Number	Corresponds to the Disk # entry in the Disks Information listbox

Partition Number 	Lists the partition based upon the order it appears in the partitions

listbox. This may not be the same as the partition ID.

When you select the Commit FT Set option, either from the edit menu or by clicking on the button, the FT set listed in this box will be added to the main FT Set and FT Member Information boxes and this list box will be cleared. This list box will also be cleared if the cancel option is selected.


Editing Disk Information

To delete a disk from the registry information, highlight the correct disk entry in the Disks listbox and select the Delete Drive option from the Edit menu. You cannot delete a drive that is a member of a currently defined FT set, nor can you delete a drive if it is the only one listed.