Partition Commander and System Commander Personal Edition Notes CONTENTS A. Installation Notes F. OEM Windows - erases all! B. Features G. Troubleshooting C. Disk Compression H. Technical Support D. OS Restrictions I. Disk managers E. Late Additions J. Ordering Information A. Installation Notes The manual is up to date. Abbreviations used include PC for Partition Commander and SCPE for System Commander Personal Edition. B. Features Partition Commander - The best way to partition your drive! Partition Commander makes it easy to take complete command of your hard drive. You can reclaim wasted disk space, organize files, add new operating systems, even speed up drive access in many cases. And you don't have to be a partitioning expert, because Partition Commander's exclusive Partition Wizard automates the process, guiding you through step by step. This makes it faster, safer, and easier than any other partitioning product. Or simply bypass the Wizard if you choose to customize. No other utility lets you partition your hard drive with more ease and confidence. It even has built in safety features to protect against system failures, including power loss while performing partition resizing or FAT conversions. And with our exclusive undo feature, you can instantly recover while you're in Partition Commander if you change your mind after you've deleted or formatted a partition! With any other product, your data is toast! Major highlights include: o Partition Wizard automates the partitioning process o Supports drives greater than 8.4 GB o Undo partition delete and undo partition format o Create and delete partitions for any OS o Move, Copy or Resize partitions Includes System Commander Personal Edition With SCPE you'll be able to have multiple operating systems function on a single PC. Once installed, when you boot up, you will be provided with a menu of OS choices, based on the operating systems you install. SCPE's Key Benefits * Management of multiple operating systems in primary and logical partitions across multiple drives * Menu selections offered before any operating system runs * Remembers the last selection made * Choose from a number of unique sound effects when System Commander's menu appears * Select a time-out period to automatically make a selection * View partition information and change bootable status * Master Boot Record and DOS partition boot record virus detection and repair PC & SCPE Technical Highlights * Create and Delete any OS partitions, with Undo delete * Non-destructive Resize for FAT and FAT-32 partitions * Copy and Move partitions * Fully compatible with Windows 95/98, NT, OS/2, Warp, NetWare, DOS, Unix variants, Pick, NextStep, CTOS, QNX, and most other OSes * Can be installed into any standard FAT partition, including a FAT-32 partition in Windows 95/98. * No bytes remain resident in memory * Comprehensive boot validity checks and recovery C. Disk Compression Partition Commander is fully compatible with disk compression, but it only allows you to look at and change the true physical partitions. Disk compression often makes other phantom drives and will alter the drive lettering. Be aware that the drive letters Partition Commander shows will not match the altered drive lettering used by disk compression. SCPE is fully compatible with disk compression, but must be installed in the non-compressed C drive. Normally SCPE will identify the non-compressed disk for you. D. Operating System Restrictions Each OS has specific installation restrictions defined by the OS vendor. For your convenience, we've summarized the key aspects of OSes relating to installation limitations on the hard disk. This is not a comprehensive list and vendors may change the limitations in future versions. The chart shows where the bootable portion of the OS can be installed. Every OS can be installed in a primary partition on the allowed hard drives. Some OSes can install into a logical partition, which is a portion of an extended partition. When known, we've also shown the manufacture's minimum partition size for its installation. To install applications, and/or have any free disk space to work with, you should always allocate more disk space than the minimum size shown. Newer versions, than those specified, will usually require a larger minimum disk partition. Boot Logical minimum OS Name Vendor Drives partition size notes AIX IBM 0 only no BeOS Be 0 only no 250 MB BSDI Unix Berkely Softw 0 only no Btron 1B Btron 0 only no 40 MB Coherent Unix Mark Williams any no 15 MB CTOS Unisys 0 only no DOS all 0 only no 1 MB DOS/V IBM/Microsoft 0 only no 3 MB FreeBSD all any no 80 MB Interactive Unix SunSoft 0 only no 20 MB JexeOS Toshiba 0 only no 100 MB Linux all 0 or 1 yes 15 MB 8 Netware v2 Novell 0 only no 20 MB NetWare v3 & v4 Novell 0 only no 55 MB 2 OpenStep Next 0 only no 120 MB Open Server SCO 0 only no 100 MB 5 OS/2 v1.x IBM 0 only no 20 MB OS/2 v2 to v4 IBM any yes 40 MB 4 Pick Pick Systems 0 only no QNX QNX Software 0 only no Solaris SunSoft any no 70 MB 7 Theos Theos Software 0 only no 10 MB UnixWare SCO/Novell 0 only no 80 MB 5 Venix Venturcom 0 only no 100 MB Windows 95 Microsoft 0 only no 40 MB 6,9 Windows 95J Microsoft 0 only no 80 MB 6,9 Windows 98 Microsoft 0 only no 250 MB 6,9 Windows 98J Microsoft 0 only no 250 MB 6,9 Windows NT v3.1 Microsoft 0 only no 90 MB Windows NT v3.5 Microsoft 0 only no 100 MB Windows NT v4.0 Microsoft 0 only no 120 MB Windows NT v5.0 Microsoft 0 only no 250 MB 9 notes: 2 - This OS is launched after DOS is booted. Information is stored in a separate non-bootable partition. 4 - OS/2 requires IBM's boot manager to be installed in a separate partition during installation. Boot manager is not required once OS/2 is installed, when using SCPE. 5 - The installation may move partitions around, causing problems for other OSes. In addition, when partitions are moved like this, SCPE may replace your OS descriptions with generic names. Menu names are associated with the physical partition number and not the data in the partition. No data is lost, but you may want to go through and update each OS description under the Setup option, and verify Local special options are set correctly for each OS choice. 6 - The boot portion is similar to a standard DOS, but significant portions of the OS can be installed on other drives. 7 - Solaris documentation indicates it only supports booting from a diskette when installed on any drive other than drive 0, but SCPE will properly boot Solaris from any IDE drive, without a Solaris boot diskette. Some SCSI controller/drive combinations may not allow anything other than booting Solaris from the first disk. 8 - Source code can be changed to support booting off of other drives. 9 - Can be installed in and understands FAT-32 partitions. (For Windows 95, only OSR2 supports FAT-32). E. Late Additions Multiple Undo Format Partition Commander's format feature clears a partition of all files and data. This is useful if you wish to quickly erase everything in a partition and recreate a clean and new system structure for the partition. In the event you later decide you really want all your files and data back, you can perform an Undo Format. The Undo Format feature has been enhanced to allow the undo of multiple partitions, and the ability to undo a Partition Commander format after exiting Partition Commander. Key system information is saved when you perform a Partition Commander format. This action only takes several seconds, and allows you to undo the Partition Commander format on any FAT or FAT-32 partition. You cannot undo a format performed by another utility, such as the Windows FORMAT command, nor can you undo a format once you write files into the partition. If you wish to disable this feature, at the Advanced menu under options, unmark Allow multi-undo formatting. F. OEM Windows can erase everything! During the installation of some OEM versions of Windows95/98, the installation program may or may not prompt you to format or repartition your hard drive. This means it could erase all files and erase all partitions on your drive, including non-DOS partitions! This operation depends on how the OEM set up the specific OEM version of Windows, as some OEM versions behave nicely (i.e. they might warn you if it is about to erase everything). In general, unless you plan to erase everything on the drive and start over, we recommend only using the full retail or upgrade packages of Windows 95/98. Partitio Commander has no control over how the OEM Windows erases partitions. USE CAUTION when installing an OEM version on a system that has an existing operating systems you wish to keep. OEM versions often have the words printed on the CD-ROM "For Distribution Only with a New PC". G. Troubleshooting Most problems are easily resolved as described in the manual under Troubleshooting. The SCIN program contains a complete knowledge base of problems and solutions which our own technical support staff use. It also includes common questions and answers. To access this extensive database, run SCIN, and select Troubleshooting to start the knowledge base engine. Partition Commander provides a Disable or Remove option, available from the hard disk or the diskette. Refer to the uninstallation instructions, should you need to do this. Errors related to SCPE BootXY. If immediately after installation a "BootXY." message appears, see Chapter 7, Troubleshooting under Messages from System Commander at boot up for reasons why this might occur and how to easily correct it. In most cases, you will be given the option to boot from one primary partition from the first drive. From the Boot error message, the first charter "X" indicates the basic type of error that occurred. These problems include: 0 - Error reading the master boot record 1 - No DOS partition found on drive 0 2 to 5 - After looking at all 4 partitions, either the OS partitions that were found had: disk errors reading sectors, or more likely, the SYSCMNDR.SYS file in the root directory was not found A - Disk error reading FAT B - Disk error reading SYSCMNDR.SYS C - Defective cluster encountered F - Could not find SYSCMNDR.SYS in FAT-32 partition G - Problem reading SYSCMNDR.SYS file H - Contents of SYSCMNDR.SYS are damaged The second "Y" character indicates the error code returned from the hard disk BIOS. It may indicate the hard disk or controller has some type of problem, or could indicate bad partition information on the disk. Errors "0" and ">" are not a BIOS error, but indicate the desired data was not found on the disk. BIOS error codes are: "Y" Character Hard Disk BIOS error 0 invalid or missing data 1 invalid drive or command 2 missing address mark 3 write protected 4 sector not found 8 DMA overrun (time-out) : bad sector detected ; bad track detected > invalid or missing data @ ECC error during read A ECC error during read P disk controller/drive problem p seek operation failed time-out - no response others undocumented BIOS error For example, an error message BootA@. indicates that System Commander was attempting to read the FAT, but the controller found an ECC error (which indicates a defective sector in the FAT data area). At a minimum, run Micoroft's SCANDISK on the drive and have it correct any errors. Be sure to perform the optional surface scan within SCANDISK. As another example, the error message Boot2>. appears. This indicates that the SYSCMNDR.SYS file could not be found in any primary partition on the first drive. To fix this, boot from a diskette and perform a full install. H. Technical Support If you followed the manual, you are unlikely to have any problems. The chapter on troubleshooting covers some of the rare problems which might be encountered. Seemingly bad problems like "Invalid COMMAND.COM" are usually solved easily, and are described in the manual as well as the SCIN troubleshooting database (see prior section for details). Technical support is available to registered users for 90 days after your first contact with V Communications after your purchase. If you call after this period, please have a credit card ready for a nominal charge per call. All technical support calls require your serial number and version number, which is found on your registration card. For technical support to help you quickly, if at all possible, please run the SCOUT utility from the hard disk or diskette. This utility will run several diagnostics and collect key data about your system. This data is written to a file SCOUT.TXT Print the file, or include the file with your e-mail or FAX. (408) 965-4018 (Tech support, 9 am - 5 pm PST M-F) You can also reach us by email at SUPPORT@V-COM.COM. Please include a brief description of the problem, and the version and serial number found on your registration card. It is also helpful to describe what OSes and versions you are using, and how the drive is partitioned. While we can help you with problems related to Partition Commander, we cannot assist you with using or solving problems within a specific OS. For these issues, you can contact the OS vendor or a third party help desk service. I. Disk Managers Some systems use a software disk manager like Disk Manager or EZ-Drive/EZ-BIOS. These products allow new large drives to work with older systems. SCPE and PC are compatible with current releases of these products. Versions of EZ-Drive prior to version 9 do not seem to always upgrade properly, and SCPE may fail to work. If you must use EZ-Drive, you may need to back up the system, remove EZ-Drive entirely and install version 9. Then restore all your files from the backup. SPExports (a very old and rarely encountered disk manager) is not compatible with any boot management, and is not compatible with most OSes (DOS and Windows are the exception). If you are using SPExports, we recommend switching to Disk Manager or EZ-Drive, or better yet, remove it altogether as described below. Keep in mind disk managers work fine for DOS and Windows 95/98, but will prevent most other OSes from running on your system. If you plan to use any other OSes, you might consider a hardware upgrade to support all OSes. These upgrades will also let the hard drive run in it's fastest mode of operation, allow you to boot directly from a diskette, and gain back additional main memory. Instructions for advanced users and technicians Hardware upgrade options: 1) Replace the IDE disk card with an EIDE card that has LBA support (often stated on the box "supports drives > 500 MB"). Be aware that some very cheap cards do not have a BIOS ROM, and include a software disk manager instead. Since the whole idea is to get rid of the software disk manager, the cheapest cards will provide no benefit. 2) Replace the motherboard's BIOS with a new one. One company that sells new BIOSes is Unicore at 1-800-800-2467. 3) Install a BIOS extender card, such as Unicore's LBA Pro. The LBA Pro adds a BIOS that is fully LBA compatible, and requires no cable changes. Contact Unicore at 1-800-800-2467. 4) Replace the computer or motherboard with a Pentium or better system. All new motherboards support large drives. Important - To remove Disk Manager or EZ-Drive, it is necessary to back up your system. Neither product offers an uninstall option as of this writing, and once the disk manager product is removed all data on the drive is lost! Once the system is backed up, you can change your hardware. After the hardware is updated and the BIOS CMOS setting are updated for the drive, it is necessary to use a boot diskette that boots BEFORE the disk manager runs. Boot from Partition Commander's DISK 2 and delete all partitions. Now you can create and format a new partition(s) and restore your data from the backup. J. Ordering Information To purchase additional copies contact us at: V Communications, Inc. 2290 North First St., Suite 101 San Jose, CA 95131 USA (408) 965-4000 (Sales) (408) 965-4014 (FAX) We also offer very attractive volume discounts and multi-site licenses. Contact our Sales department for additional information. Additional information is available at www.v-com.com, our company Web site. End of Notes