Amiga Old File System: Difference between revisions

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{{Short description|File system for AmigaOS}}

{{one source|date=October 2015}}

On the [[Amiga]], the '''Old File System''', sometimes also called ''Amiga File System'', was the filesystem for [[AmigaOS]] before the [[Amiga Fast File System]]. Even though it used 512-byte blocks, it reserved the first small portion of each [[Block (data storage)|block]] for [[Metadata (computing)|metadata]], leaving an actual data block capacity of 488 bytes per block. It wasn't very suitable for anything except [[floppy disk]]s, and it was soon replaced.

== History ==

OriginallyCommonly known as just the ''Amiga File System'', it originally came from the filesystem of [[TRIPOS]], which formed the basis of the first versions of [[AmigaDOS]]. It received the nickname of "Old" or "Original" File System when [[Amiga Fast File System|Fast File System]] was released with AmigaOS 1.3.

OFS is very good for repairing the filesystem in the event of a problem, although the so-called DiskDoctor provided by Commodore quickly earned the name DiskDestroyer, because it could not repair No-DOS type autostart disks provided by third-party software manufacturers as bootable disks for games. The idea to create non-standard autobootable disks was born in a primitive attempt to prevent copy of such disks and to avoid the loading and launch of Amiga DOS, in order to directly access the Amiga graphic, audio and memory chipsets. DiskDoctor in fact changed autostart disks bootblocks into standard AmigaDOS-based ones, renaming a disk with "Lazarus" namedisk, and made the autostart disk unusable.<ref>[http://www.amiga.org/forums/showthread.php?t=72730 Why was "Disk doctor" so spectacularly bad at its job?]</ref>