Common Question and Answer for OS/2 2.x Q. Do you need OS/2 2.x driver to run Adaptec controller ? A. The OS/2 2x drivers are embedded in the operating system. Under OS/2 2.0, the drivers are compressed in disk # 8 and under 2.1 they are in disk #3. The drivers can be uncompressed by using the following OS/2 UNPACK command: UNPACK A:DASDDRVS \OS2 /N:xxxxxxx.ADD (insert disk #8 for OS/2 2.0) UNPACK A:\SCSIADDS C:\OS2 (insert disk #3 for OS/2 2.1) This will extract all ADD drivers and copied them to OS2 directory. The system must be running OS/2 in order to run the above UNPACK command. The latest drivers are also listed on our BBS as AHA152X.EXE, AHA154X.EXE, AHA164X.EXE, AHA174X.EXE and AIC7770.EXE. Note: The AHA2742 drivers are not included with IBM disk, we provide the driver with our KIT or can be downloaded from our BBS, AIC7770.EXE. Q. What are the CD-ROMs supported by OS/2 2.x ? A. The following CD-ROMs are supported by OS/2 2.x : Hitachi: CDR-1650S, 1750S, 3650, 3750 IBM: CD-ROM I, CD-ROM II NEC: CDR-25, 36, 37, 38, 72, 73, 74, 82, 83, 84 Panasonic: CR-501, LK-MC501S, MC501B, MC521 Pioneer: DRM-600, DRM-604X Sony: CDU-541, 561, 6111, 6211, 7211 Texel: DM-3021, 3024, 5021, 5024 Toshiba: XM-3201, 3301, 3401 Q. What is the command line in OS/2 CONFIG.SYS file for Adaptec controller ? A. BASEDEV=AHA154X.ADD (For 1540/42B/C controller). Q. How does a removable drive (MO, Bernoulli, Syquest, etc) work ? A. A removable drive works as a floppy, hard drive or removable drive under OS/2 2.x. IBM only support it as a floppy drive. Floppy Drive: Can be used as floppy drive if installed under OS/2 2.x. FDISKPM will not see the drive. The data cannot be interchanged from DOS machine to OS/2. Under drive icon in OS/2 desktop there will be a floppy icon for removable drive. The CONFIG.SYS file must have: BASEDEV=AHA154X.ADD /V Hard Drive: Can be used as hard drive if LOCKDRV.FLT is installed in CONFIG.SYS file (LOCKDRV.EXE is on our BBS).The drive acts as hard drive. FDISKPM will see the drive, and also can read/write data saved under DOS and vice versa. But the drive loose the removability, as you cannot remove the cartridge once operating system is loaded. The system must be reset to change the cartridge. The CONFIG.SYS file must have: BASEDEV=AHA154X.ADD /V BASEDEV=LOCKDRV.FLT /UNIT:0 Removable Drive: Can be used as removable hard drive if OS2ASPI.DMD (OS2ASPI.EXE on BBS, and included with OS/2 2.x) with Corel software is installed. FDISKPM will not see the drive, must use CFORMAT of Corel to format the cartridge. Can read/write data in both OS/2 and DOS. Retain the removability. Suppose the drive is on SCSI ID 2, then the CONFIG.SYS file must have: BASEDEV=AHA154X.ADD /V /A:0 /!DM:2 BASEDEV=OS2ASPI.DMD then install Corel SCSI software. In above examples an Adaptec 1542 controller is used. In addition to above statements one must have OS2SCSI.DMD and OS2DASD.DMD must be loaded in the CONFIG.SYS file. Q. What is the function of /I parameter with ADD driver ? A. Under OS/2 2.1 if there are two controllers in a system, you can disable the ADD driver access to a certain controller by using /I parameter. e.g. BASEDEV=AHA174X.ADD /A:1 /I that will disable the ADD driver accessing the second controller. With this parameter ADD driver does not know the existence of the second controller. if used as: BASEDEV=AHA174X.ADD /A:1 /!DM /!SM that will only disable the ADD driver accessing the DASD manager and SCSI manager but the ADD driver will still be controlling the second controller. The above switch is not documented in the manual and it could also be used for 1540 family controller. For additional parameters used with ADD driver, dowload the required driver from our BBS. The Axxxxxx.EXE is a self extracting file which contains the ADD driver and a README file. The README file describes different parameters. Q. Do I need to enable extended BIOS translation in 1542/1742/2742 cards ? A. There has been a slight change in the way OS/2 behaves since the release of OS/2 2.1. If you format a partition using FAT it must be within the first 1024 cylinders of the drive. This is intended to insure compatibility with DOS. OS/2 2.0 and the beta releases of 2.1 did not check the cylinder location before formatting a partition. This created problems for people using boot manager and booting from a logical partition. It was possible to create a drive that the BIOS could not access and therefore the system would not boot!! Thus if you want to partition a drive that is greater than 1 GB you should probably enable extended BIOS translation to allow maximum flexibility. Q. Can I use ASPI4DOS.SYS, ASPI2DOS.SYS or ASPIEDOS.SYS under OS/2 DOS/Windows sessions ? A. No, these ASPI drivers are only for DOS operating systems. Cannot be used under DOS/Windows sessions. Instead we have OS2ASPI.DMD that can be used in CONFIG.SYS file to handle ASPI calls. Common Question and Answer for OS/2 1.3 Q. Does this version of OS/2 require software ? A. Microsoft OS/2 1.30.1 has embedded driver whereas IBM requires ASW 1420/1220 or ASW-1400. Q. Does OS/2 1.3 require ASPI driver ? A. No, it has LADDR I/O architecture. It uses BID file in conjunction with VSD and TSD files. Any software which supports aspi manager will not work under this version. Q. Does OS/2 1.3 support CD-ROM ? A. Yes, only Denon DRD 253, Sony CDU-541 and Toshiba TXM-3301a1. For other CD-ROM please consult IBM or Microsoft. Q. Does this version of OS/2 support tape drive ? A. Any tape drive software uses LADDR support will work. Sytos 1.32 has some problem, recommended one is Systos 1.35. Q. Does removable drive (MO, Bernoulli) work ? A. The removable drive provided with VSD and TSD drivers will work. Q. How to add Adaptec controller on a pre-existing installation of OS/2 ? A. Do not re-install the operating system, download IBMOS213.HLP from BBS and follow the instruction describe in the text file. Q. Does AHA-2742 and 2842VL support OS/2 1.3 ? A. There are no drivers support for 2742 and 2842 under OS/2 1.3.