Welcome to CMD QuickSCSI ------------------------ This README file contains important information about QuickSCSI and your CSA-65XX. For the latest information about the CSA-65XX and QuickSCSI, please read this file in its entirety. TABLE OF CONTENTS ----------------- 1. Features 2. Installation 3. Important Information 1. FEATURES ----------- - DiskPrep: a disk preparation utility which performs the functions FDISK and more. DiskPrep allows you to add/delete partitions, low level format your drives, set the active partition, etc. FDISK will also work with your CSA-65XX, but beware that it will sometimes scramble drive letter and volume label information. - SCSIScan: a utility for displaying information about the devices attached to your CSA-65XX's. SCSIScan displays the SCSI ID's of your SCSI devices, and allows you to examine their capabilities. Under DOS, Windows and Windows for Workgroups 3.xx, the DOS ASPI Manager (\DOS\CMD65XXA.SYS) must be loaded in order to run SCSIScan. The DOS ASPI Manager is not needed when running SCSIScan under Windows 95 MS-DOS Prompt. 2. INSTALLATION --------------- To start QuickSCSI installation, type the path where the diskette #1 installation program resides. For instance, if you will be installing from drive A, type: A:INSTALL Once QuickSCSI Installation loads, you will be guided through the installation process with a series of prompts and dialogs. If you have a mouse, be sure to load your mouse driver first. If you do not have a mouse, the keyboard will work fine. The following key definitions may be helpful: ARROW KEYS - move within a field. TAB - move from one field to another within a window or dialog To select a button or menu, hold down ALT while pressing the underlined letter in the button or menu. After you have answered all the questions, QuickSCSI will copy files to your C: drive and perform edits to files as needed. Backup copies of any files it changes will be created in case you want to undo the installation. DOS ASPI Driver --------------- The DOS ASPI driver (CMD65XXA.SYS) is the ASPI Manager to support applications calling the ASPI interface under DOS and Windows 3.x. If you plan to run ASPI applications, you have to load this driver by installation or you can manually add the below line to your config.sys file (assume the driver is in the Quickcmd directory of C drive): Device=c:\quickcmd\cmd65xxa.sys The DOS ASPI driver is not necessary under Windows 95. ASPI CD-ROM Driver ------------------ The ASPI CD-ROM driver (CMDASPCD.SYS) is used to support SCSI CD-ROMs. The installation program will install this driver if you answer "Yes" to the question of whether or not you have a SCSI CD-ROM. You can also install this driver manually by adding the following line in your config.sys after the DOS driver above: (Assuming cmdaspcd.sys is in a Quickcmd directory of your C: drive) Device=c:\quickcmd\cmdaspcd.sys Then add the following line in your autoexec.bat: (Assuming that your DOS directory is in your C: drive) C:\dos\mscdex.exe /d:cmd_cd Windows 3.1x/Windows for Workgroups 3.11 FastDisk Driver -------------------------------------------------------- Loading the Windows FastDisk driver will yield faster Windows I/O throughput. FastDisk is a true Windows Driver (VxD) which runs in protected mode and implements I/O queuing. With FastDisk installed, you can open many more concurrent DOS boxes than without it (since it makes DOS boxes fully pageable), and Windows will speed up noticeably, especially if you like to open multiple windows running background tasks simultaneously. Installation of FastDisk is recommended only if your system has at least 2MB of memory. If your system has less than 4MB of memory, you may want to tune FastDisk by editing your SYSTEM.INI file after install is done. Find the line reading "CMDCCBCOUNT=200," and change it to 50. See the FastDisk tuning section below for more information. NOTE: FastDisk may be used only in ENHANCED MODE. You should read the rest of this README file to get further information about this release before you do the installation. INSTALLING CSA-65XX WINDOWS FASTDISK DRIVER If CMD-65XX Fastdisk driver has been installed by CMD's install program, the SYSTEM.INI will have been updated automatically. Otherwise, users can update the SYSTEM.INI manually as below: 1. Add the following lines to the [386Enh] section of your SYSTEM.INI device=CMDDISK.386 device=INT13.386 device=XPTSIM.386 32BITDISKACCESS=ON CMDCCBCount=200 CMDTimeoutCount=20000 2. Uncomment the following line (if there is) by removing the semicolon at the beginning of the line or add the line just right before device=*PAGEFILE (if there isn't already one) device=*BLOCKDEV 3. Comment out the following lines (if there are any) by placing a semicolon at the start of every line device=*int13 device=*wdctrl device=ios.386 device=vxdldr.386 4. Now run Windows, open the Control Panel, and execute Enhanced. Make sure you have set up a permanent swapfile (or create one) to exercise the 32-bit disk access feature. If you have Windows for Workgroups 3.11, turn on 32-bit file access feature and make sure the amount of RAM allocated for vcache.386 is 2 MB or more. 5. You are ready to utilize both advanced features of Microsoft Windows/WFW 3.11: 32-bit disk access and 32-bit file access. Netware 3.1X/4.XX Drivers ------------------------- The CMD drivers for Netware adopt the Common Access Method (CAM) interface. There are 3 driver modules for Netware 3.1X or 4.XX. There is another driver module that provides support for ASPI interface. If you plan to install CMD driver for Netware 3.1X, just copy the driver modules to your server directory after you have installed the server. If you are installing Netware 4.XX, it will prompt you for vendor specific driver. Insert the CMD driver diskette #1 and select to install C65DSK4X.DSK. It will automatically install the other 2 modules. 3. IMPORTANT INFORMATION ------------------------ Upgrade/Installation of Microsoft Windows ----------------------------------------- If, subsequent to running QuickSCSI Install, you decide to upgrade or reinstall Windows, the Windows installation program may re-enable the DEVICE=C:\WINDOWS\SMARTDRV.EXE /DOUBLE_BUFFER line in your CONFIG.SYS. Since CSA-65XX BIOS fully supports VDS, double-buffering is not needed, and will unnecessarily degrade your performance. To get rid of double-buffering, either edit your CONFIG.SYS and delete the offending line, or re-run QuickSCSI Install. Windows FastDisk Driver Tuning ------------------------------ To reap the maximum performance benefits, it is recommended that you use a permanent Windows swap file. The swap file is adjusted from the 386Enhanced icon in the Windows Control Panel. The I/O queue size is an entity which is configurable from the SYSTEM.INI file. The I/O queue size is the maximum number I/O requests which may be outstanding at any given instant. The default value is 200. The queue size may be adjusted to any value greater than or equal to 50. Each element in the queue will add an additional 140 bytes to non-pageable memory used by FastDisk. To adjust the queue size, change the line which reads CMDCCBCOUNT=200 to correspond to your desired queue size. For systems which have 4MB or less of RAM, you may want to adjust the value lower to free more memory for your applications. *---------------------- END OF README FILE ---------------------*