(This open letter was written by Ontrack Computer Systems, and is posted here at the Seagate Tech Support BBS as a courtesy to users of the Disk Manager software program) ----------------------------------------------------- ONTRACK COMPUTER SYSTEMS/ONTRACK DATA RECOVERY 6321 Bury Dr. Ste. 15-19 Eden Prarie, MN 55346 Notes on MS-DOS 5.0 and Disk Manager Ontrack technical support is receiving many calls from users who require assistance with the DOS 5.0 upgrade. The following information should help with the installation. If you have further questions about the DOS upgrade in general, or about running Setup or Expand, please direct your questions to: Microsoft Technical Support: 206-646-5104 (live technician) or: 206-646-5103 (recorded info) MS-DOS 5.0 comes with a special version of the DMDRVR.BIN device driver file that is capable of automatically converting your DOS 3.x compatible Disk Manager "Write/Read" partitions to DOS 5.x compatible ones. The procedure for using this special version of DMDRVR.BIN is as follows: 1. Back up and rename or delete your current version of DMDRVR.BIN and XBIOS.OVL drivers on your drive C:. (Depending on what version of Disk Manager you are using, you may not currently have the XBIOS.OVL file installed on your hard disk. Do not be concerned by the absence of this file. Just back up the existing DMDRVR.BIN file in this case.) 2. Replace the old DMDRVR.BIN and XBIOS.OVL files by using the EXPAND command to expand and copy their DMDRVR.BI_ and XBIOS.OV_ files from Disk 6 for 5.25" disks or from Disk 3 for 3.5" disks to your drive C:. The commands to do this, (with Disk 6 in drive A:), are as follows: A:EXPAND A:DMDRVR.BI_ C:\DMDRVR.BIN and A:EXPAND A:XBIOS.OV_ C:\XBIOS.OVL The two resulting files, (DMDRVR.BIN and XBIOS.OVL), MUST be placed in the ROOT directory of drive C:. They will NOT function correctly if placed in a subdirectory, even if you specify that subdirectory explicitly in the DEVICE= command in your CONFIG.SYS file. Also make certain that your CONFIG.SYS file has the line DEVICE=DMDRVR.BIN in it. 3. Put the MS-DOS 5.0 diskette number 1 in drive A:, and from the A> prompt type the following: SETUP /U 4. After the installation of MS-DOS 5.0 is complete, double check that the CONFIG.SYS file is in the root directory of drive C: still contains the line DEVICE=DMDRVR.BIN, then reboot the system from the hard disk drive and the new DMDRVR will automatically convert your existing Disk Manager W/R partitions to DOS 5 compatible W/R partitions without the loss of data. If at a later date, you decide to reinstall DOS 3.x on your system, the new DMDRVR will automatically convert DOS 5.x compatible W/R partitions back to DOS 3.x compatibility the first time you boot the system under DOS 3.x. NOTES: 1. If the upgrade appears to be successful but the system locks up when launching an application such as Windows, you should try replacing the XBIOS.OVL which was installed by the DOS 5.0 upgrade with the XBIOS.OVL from your original Disk Manager diskette. If the application still locks up, then you may need to purchase the current version of Disk Manager and use the XBIOS.OVL file that is supplied with it. 2. If you decide to repartition your disk at a later date, you must have Disk Manager v4.01 or above, and use the /4 switch when running Disk Manager to tell it that this version of DOS uses DOS 4.x formatting rules, )DM/4 from the command prompt). If you currently have a 3.x version of Disk Manager, you will need to purchase the current version of Disk Manager in order to repartition your hard disk under DOS 5.0. 3. IBM PC-DOS 5.0 does not come with the new version of DMDRVR.BIN and XBIOS.OVL as Microsoft MS-DOS 5.0 does. If you are installing IBM PC-DOS 5.0 and currently have Disk Manager W/R partitions that were created under DOS 3.x and are greater in size than 32 meg, you will need to reprepare these partitions, ( a data destructive operation), using Disk Manager v4.01 or above with the /4 switch as explained above. 4. If you currently have a Disk Manager W/R partition that is greater than 512 meg in size and was created under DOS 3.x, the new DMDRVR that ships with MS-DOS 5.0 will not be able to automatically convert the partition to be compatible with DOS 5.0. In this case, you will need to re-prepare the partition (a data destructive operation), using Disk Manager v4.01 or above with the /4 switch as explained above. If for any of the above reasons you need to re-prepare your existing hard disk partitions with Disk Manager, and you do not currently have Disk Manager v4.01 or above, you will need to purchase the current version of Disk Manager. The current version of Disk Manager is fully compatible with the new DOS 5.0 standard, and is available through our sales offices at 1-800-752-1333 or 612-937-1107 internationally. We hope this information is helpful and if you have a modem, we urge you to call our BBS for further information on our Disk Manager hard disk drive installation and partitioning software or any other Ontrack products. Our BBS in online 24 hours a day at 612-937-0860.