                                EPSON AMERICA, INC.
                             Product Support Bulletin


                      Subject: Using the Manzana DrivePort


Date: 05/25/90                                          PSB No: S-0120
Page: 1 of 2                                            Originator: MWT


Manzana MicroSystems, Inc. (Goleta, Ca.) has developed a product called the 
DrivePort. It allows the removable "DataSafe" hard disk drive cartridges for the 
Equity LT-286e and LT-386SX to be used on an AT-type desktop computer. The
subsystem consists of the 16-bit DrivePort adapter card, the DrivePort base unit
and cable, a Y-configured power cable and a diskette containing the QDRIVE.SYS
device driver and utility software.

The DrivePort was tested using an Equity 386/25 desktop computer equipped with
two IDE hard disk drives, two floppy disk drives, a streaming tape drive and a
VGA video adapter.

The first step in the installation process is configuring the DrivePort adapter 
card. The default jumper settings assign the DrivePort as an additional drive 
(E1, E4 and E5 installed; E2, E3 and E6 removed). This is the setting that 
was used. Note that it is possible to configure the DrivePort as the primary 
(only) drive, but Manzana recommends against this for a number of reasons.

There are two other jumpers (W1 and W2) that determine the power source 
for the adapter. When these Jumpers are set in the A-B positions, the adapter
is powered by the 'Y' power cable. This cable must be connected to one of
the disk drive power cables from the power supply. Then take the small 4-pin
connector of the 'Y' cable and attach to the matching connector J3 on the
adapter card. The third part of the "Y" is a male 4-pin connsctor for powering 
a disk drive, if all of the power supply wiring harness connectors are in use.

With W1 and W2 in the B-C positions, all power is supplied via the 16-bit 
system bus. This is the configuration that was tested.

Now the adapter card is installed in any available 16-bit AT-type expansion 
slot. Once installed, the cable from the base unit is attached to the DB-37 
connector on the adapter card's mounting bracket. This completes the 
hardware portion of the installation.

                                                        PSB No: S - 0120
                                                        Page: 2 of 2


At this point, the device driver and utility software should be copied to the
hard drive. On the test unit, the QDRIVE.SYS driver was copied to the C:\SYS
subdirectory, and the QDRVLTR.EXE, QDRVCHK.COM and HXBIOS.COM utilities were
copied to C:\DOS. the CONFIG.SYS file was then edited to add the following line:

                          DEVICE = C:\SYS\QDRIVE.SYS

This device driver acts as an extension of the drive handling capabilities of 
MS-DOS, allowing the DrivePort to be recognized on boot-up. On the test
system, logical drives C, D, and E were already assigned to the internal hard 
drives, so QDRIVE.SYS assigned logical drive F to the DrivePort. If the system
is booted without a hard drive cartridge mounted in the base unit, there will be 
a pause while the device driver retries the DrivePort. It will then proceed with 
the boot process without installing the device driver or assigning a logical 
drive.

NOTE: Installing or removing a hard drive cartridge while the system is 
powered on may result in severe damage to the drive, the DrivePort, or the 
computer. Always turn the computer ofF before installing or removing the hard 
drive cartridge.

QDRVCHK.COM provides technical statistics on the mounted DrivePort, similar 
to the DOS CHKDSK command. HXBIOS.COM can be executed if the system 
was booted with no hard drive cartridge installed and QDRVCHK needs to be 
run. QDRVLTR.EXE will provide the DrivePort's logical drive assignment.

The hard drive cartridge must be initialked on the LT-286e or LT-386SX. 
The low-level format and partitioning cannot be done via the DrivePort. Also,
the DOS-level format must be performed for the first time on the laptop - it
may then be formatted while installed in the DrivePort.

In testing, the DrivePort performed as if an additional conventional hard disk 
drive had been installed. File and directory copies, application program
execution and BACKUP/RESTORE functions were tested with no problems.

The DrivePort is available from Epson Accessories, Inc. at (800) 873-7766.
