AdvanSys ASPI Disk Driver ------------------------- This file contains important information and last-minute changes regarding the AdvanSys ASPI Disk Driver. How to reach AdvanSys --------------------- By mail: AdvanSys 1150 Ringwood Court San Jose, CA 95131 Phone: 408-383-9400 FAX: 408-383-9612 Tech Support: 800-525-7440 BBS: 408-383-9540 (28,800 baud, 8 bits, 1 stop, no parity) Interactive FAX: 408-383-9753 Introduction ------------ ADVDISK is an ASPI Disk Driver for MS-DOS. It is an installable device driver that is loaded in the CONFIG.SYS file. To install, copy ADVDISK.EXE to your boot drive (C:) and add this line to CONFIG.SYS: DEVICE = C:\ADVDISK.EXE Current version is 3.04, which supports 512 byte, 1024 byte and 2048 byte sectors. The Advdisk partitions are compatible with NT 4.0 format. WIN 95 can also read ADVDISK partitioned disks. However, a WIN 95 partitioned disk cannot be recognized by ADVDISK. This version also supports SuperFloppy format media. It means that ADVDISK can recognize SuperFloppy media formatted by WIN95, NT, and OS/2, and reversely other OS can recognize the ADVDISK's formatted media too. ADVDISK provides its own utility which can format a media as SuperFloppy media. See command line option "FORMAT" for details. Command line options -------------------- ADVDISK is actually two components: the resident driver (installed in CONFIG.SYS) and the executable (run from the DOS command line). Each component has its own set of command-line options. The resident driver recognizes these options: /P The driver will pause after loading. /X=h,i ADVDISK will, by default, attempt to use all fixed, removable, and magneto-optical disk drives it finds on the SCSI bus. If a particular device is being used by another driver, add this exclude option to the command line, and ADVDISK will not control the device. For example: DEVICE = C:\ADVDISK.EXE /X=0,3 will exclude the device on host 0 with device ID 3 from control. /R=n ADVDISK will only reserve one drive letter for each REMOVABLE device. Under most circumstances, this is sufficient. However, if the medium used by this device has more than one partition on it, ADVDISK will need to reserve more drive letters for each device. For example, if using a device with two partitions, use: DEVICE = C:\ADVDISK.EXE /R=2 If ADVDISK does not detect as many partitions on the medium as specified to reserve, it will report "drive not ready" for the undefined partitions. The executable component of ADVDISK has its own set of command-line options. /? or /H Displays a usage screen detailing all the command-line options available. MAP ADVDISK will display a map, showing which SCSI devices are associated with DOS drive letters, and their lock status. LOCK [drive: | ALL] This will lock a particular drive (or all ADVDISK drives) into place. Media must be present in the drive for this command to be successful. Once the drive is locked, media cannot be ejected from the drive using the eject button. This is only applicable for removable devices. UNLOCK [drive: | ALL] This command will unlock the particular drive, and allow for media to eject normally. This is only applicable for removable devices. EJECT [drive: | ALL] Media will be ejected from the drive. If the drive is locked, this command will unlock the drive and then eject the disk. This is only applicable for removable devices. PARTITION ADVDISK has a simple disk partition program built-in. This program should be used for any unpartitioned media you wish to use with ADVDISK. The program will ask in an interactive manner which drive is to be partitioned. ADVDISK will not generate more than one partition and will not selectively remove partitions. It will repartition disks by overwriting the existing partition. PARTITION will completely wipe out any information already on media and therefore should be used with care. It will ask for confirmation before partitioning media. FORMAT ADVDISK has a simple disk format program built-in. This program can directly format a media without the partition table, which is so called SuperFloppy format media. FORMAT will generate only one partition and completely wipe out any information already on media, and therefore should be used with care. Using ADVDISK with real-time disk compression --------------------------------------------- Testing has not demonstrated any compatability problems with ADVDISK and real-time disk compression, such as Stacker, DoubleSpace, or DriveSpace. However, these utilities will swap drive letters to make the compressed drive seem to exist where the uncompressed drive used to reside. This can confuse the ADVDISK locking and status reporting features. To use these features, specify the drive letter that corresponds to the uncompressed drive when working with ADVDISK. --------------------------------------------------------------------- Copyright (c) 1997 Advanced System Products, Inc. All rights reserved.