ADSM-L

Re: How do You Assign PC Volume Labels?

1996-02-29 08:30:35
Subject: Re: How do You Assign PC Volume Labels?
From: Mark Keintz <mkeintz AT SSC.UPENN DOT EDU>
Date: Thu, 29 Feb 1996 08:30:35 -0500
On Thu, 29 Feb 1996, Jeffrey Mathers wrote:

> ... I don't believe that you can
> change the volume label on a hard drive without some third party
> utility like Norton (Windows) Partition Magic (OS/2).

Oh yes you can.  Both DOS and OS/2 have a simple LABEL command that
changes the labels on hard disk partitions the same way they do with
floppies, i.e. without modifying any other disk contents.  After all, in
the new world the user is the owner is the repair person is the system
administrator, at least if he/she wants to be.

BTW, this gives the user a lot of power to influence the contents of
backups.  For example, one of our PC's actually had 2 sets of backed up
data on the server for the D: partition - one associated with the old disk
label, one with the new disk label.

Also, note that OS/2 and DOS will tolerate partitions with no labels, or
duplicate labels.  I know that ADSM won't touch an OS/2 partition that is
unlabelled (and I assume the same for DOS). I don't know what it would do
with duplicate labels on a single machine, but given that the label is
used by ADSM, together with the machine id (in my case the machines
internet node name) as a means of generating a unique identity, it can't
be a good thing.

As to labelling conventions, I would stay away from labels like DISKC,
etc., since disk letters are reassignable on a PC.  Also, since PC's may
have disks formatted with multiple primary partitions, a PC may have
multiple disk C's (or even multiple D's, etc.).  So labels like DISKC,
DISKD, etc can be misleading.  If I were to impose a regime of disk
labelling, I would use someting like:

     disk0_part1        (The first partition on the first hard disk)
     disk0_part2        (2nd partition on the first hard disk)

     disk1_part1        (first partition on the second hard disk)
     disk1_part2    etc.

Why disk0 for the first disk?  Because the firmware of all the PC's I know
of identify disks in terms of offsets from the first disk, rather than by
exact ordinal position.  But I don't think partitions are dealt with the
same way, so I start with part1.

mark

Mark Keintz                            University of Pennsylvania / 6298
Computer Core Director                 Population Studies Center
mark_keintz AT pop.upenn DOT edu              3718 Locust Walk
phone: 215/898-6713  fax: 898-2124     Philadelphia, PA 19104-6298
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