Seagate Technology, Inc. Scotts Valley, CA Telephone Recordings Transcript DOS5 Info ---------- Seagate's Technical support has received many calls from users who require assistance with the DOS 5.0 upgrade when used with the Disk Manager device driver. The following information should help clarify the installation. Disk Manager software is a product of Ontrack Computer Systems (ph:1-800-752-1333 or 1-612-937-1107). Seagate Technology provides support only for Seagate specific versions of Disk Manager previously shipped with Seagate drives. Please note that Seagate Technology no longer ships any software with any of its drives. To begin with, the DOS 5.0 upgrade requires a minimum of 2.8 free megabytes on the bootable partition of the hard drive you plan to upgrade. If you used the standard Disk Manager installation of a 1 meg bootable C: partition, then this is an obvious problem, possibly requiring reformatting the drive. 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 in six steps: Step 1. Of course, start by backing up your hard disc drives. Step 2. Back up to floppy then rename your current version of DMDRVR.BIN and XBIOS.OVL drivers on your drive C:. (Depending on what version of Disk Manager you used, 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.) Step 3. Replace the old DMDRVR.BIN and XBIOS.OVL files by using the EXPAND command supplied wih your new DOS 5 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, are as follows: At the DOS prompt type: 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. Step 4. Put the MS-DOS 5.0 diskette number 1 in drive A:, and from the "A" drive prompt type the following: SETUP /U . This will begin an automatic upgrade installation of the new DOS 5. Step 5. After the installation of MS-DOS 5.0 is complete, 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. Step 6. We recommend that you supplement your upgrade by also installing the new DOS 5 to FLOPPY diskettes. This is accomplished by typing SETUP /F with DOS 5 diskette number 1 in drive A:. This process will create a bootable DOS 5 diskette and also a set of DOS 5 utility diskettes. Be sure to have enough blank floppy diskettes at hand. In the event that a complete DOS 5 installation is required from scratch, this will allow you to issue DOS 5 commands from floppy such as FDISK and FORMAT. If you have further questions on the DOS upgrade, 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) ==================================================================== The information that follows are application notes we have collected that stand alone as individual topics: 1. If a complete re-Partition and Format is necessitated, then it is important to determine whether or not the Disk Manager device driver is required in the first place. This will give you, without the device driver, more free RAM and provide a PURE DOS environment. With DOS 4 and DOS 5, few conditions really REQUIRE Disk Manager or any similar device driver. In general the following basic rules apply: a. Any XT system will not need Disk Manager. b. Any SCSI drive will not need Disk Manager. c. Most RLL and ESDI drives will not need Disk Manager. d. AT systems with matching CMOS drive types will not need Disk Manager. e. AT systems with "custom" or "user-definable" CMOS drive types will not need Disk Manager. f. Seagate ST01/02, ST05X, ST11M/R, or ST21/22M/R controllers and host adapters will not need Disk Manager. In other words, if you have an AT system with either an MFM or AT (ide) interface drive that is NOT supported in the CMOS drive type table and is without "Custom" drive types, then the Disk Manager program MAY be needed. In the case of the MFM drives, the ST22M 1 to 1 16-bit controller with on-board bios is an inexpensive way to work around the problem. Similar host adapter solutions with on-board BIOS are available for the AT (ide) drives as well. 2. If you decide to repartition your disk at a later date, and have determined that you will need the Disk Manager device driver, then 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). Be sure to have installed DOS 5 to floppy diskettes first. If you currently have a 3.x version of Disk Manager, you will need to purchase the current version of Disk Manager from Ontrack Computer Systems in order to repartition you hard disk under DOS 5.0. 3. If your hard drive is non standard to your CMOS, any DM version 4.0 or greater can be used with the /4 option and work with DOS 5.0. This is provided your drive is <1024 cylinders so you dont need Disk Manager versions with the XBIOS.OVL. If your Drive is non standard and greater than 1024 cylinders, then DM versions 4.3 or 4.03 as appropriate to your drive will work with DOS 5.0. 4. Your hard drive must be standard in your CMOS in order to make a single partition with DOS 5.0. If it is not standard, then the largest partion you can create is what is supported by your CMOS drive type. Full drive capacity would require the use of a device driver like Disk Manager.