The eComstation CSM Boot Options Menu Selection Screen (for the latest detailed info see the www.ecomstation.com web site) Introduction The eComStation Boot Options Menu Selection screen allows you to configure the system to work with the hardware on your workstation. Most computers will not require any changes in this screen in order to be able to boot normally. However, if you have trouble getting the eCS to boot from floppy or CD, then you can use the options on the Boot Options menu Selection screen adjust settings that might be more compatiable with your hardware. There are five areas on the screen which you can use to configure how the system will boot. The first section, titled Miscellaneous, allows you to change the behaviour of certain aspects of the system for the boot, such as the international settings like character language types, keyboard, use of a swap file, drive letters and locations of desktop ini source files and so on. The second section, titled Display, is for display screen setting to be used by the installer for the installer GUI. The third section, titled ATA(PI)/(E)IDE, controls how the system will use IDE type controllers in the system. Typically, IDE devices consist of Hard Drives and CD-ROM drives. The fourth section, titled Misc storage. The fifth section, titled SCSI, allows you to configure SCSI adapter cards in the system. There is also an option to use the 'I20' compliant storage devices and Magnetic Optical devices. Navigating the eComstation CSM Boot Options Selection screen The controls you use to change the various settings on the screen are the arrow keys, the ®Tab¯ key, and the ®Spacebar¯. Once you have configured the devices, you can use the ®Enter¯ key to continue the boot. Here is a brief description of each of these controls in turn: ®Tab¯: or ®Right-Arrow¯: Use either of these keys to move to the next field. ®Shift+Tab¯ or ®Left-Arrow¯: Use either of these keys to move to the previous field. ®Spacebar¯, ®Up-Arrow¯, and ®Down-Arrow¯: Use these keys to modify the value of the currently selected field. Fields that use a checkmark to select whether a particular option is on or off can be toggled by using the space bar. When there are several options that are available in a field, you can scroll through them using the up and down arrows. Use the ®Enter¯ key to continue booting once you have configured the setup to your satisfaction. Each area on the screen will be described in detail in the following sections. In general, if you don't understand what you see on this screen, the best thing to try is to simply hit ®Enter¯, boot the computer, and see if it works. Most of the time, it will. If it doesn't, or if you wish to change some of the defaults about how the system looks and acts when you boot, you can make selections in this screen to try and get the system to boot.ut how the system behaves after you've booted. The most common change is for systems that have multiple cdrom type devices (cdrom, cdrw) or SCSI storage devices. If you have multiple cdrom type devices you need to determine what drive letter is being assigned to each device. eCS default boot menu setting assigns the first cdrom type device the "S:" drive letter. But which device is first is affected by your hardware setup. On SCSI controllers the device with the lowest SCSI address would get assigned the drive letter "S" and the next higher cd type device would be assigned "T". This is how it works even if the lowest addressed device is your cdrw burner. In this case you would need to put the eCS CD in the cdrw device or change the "eCS Cd drive", "User Init", System Init" file setting on the boot options menu. The other common change is to select a SCSI controller. See the SCSI section for more info. You can skip to the section on IDE controllers or SCSI if that is the only change you need to make. Some Definitions Before we get down to the nitty gritty of making various selections in the preboot screen, we should define some terms so that those who are reading this document will know what we are discussing. If you already know the meaning of terms like IDE and SCSI, feel free to skip this section. Codepage A Codepage is a special system file which determines which characters are available to you while you use the computer. In general, if you are in North America or Western Europe, 850 is the best selection. However, if you live in other parts of the world, you may want to select another codepage, or even choose to load more than one codepage. If you have any further questions about codepages, or if you want to see a complete list of available codepages, type 'help codepage' at the eCS command prompt once you get the system up and running. IDE - Integrated Drive Electronics IDE is a technology that allows connecting devices that store data to a computer. In short, it's a way of connecting a hard drive (or another kind of drive) to a PC so that the computer can use the hard drive to store data. There are several devices that use IDE, including hard drives, CD-ROM drives, removable drives like zip and jaz disks, and so on. SCSI - Small Computer System Interface SCSI is similar in principle to IDE, but more flexible. It's also more expensive. Each SCSI interface can allow connecting up to fifteen devices to your computer per channel, while IDE only allows two per channel, and supports a much broader range of devices, including scanners, tape drives, and so on. Swap - Virtual Memory Swap, or virtual memory, is a way of allowing your computer to have more memory than is actually installed as RAM in your computer. If you computer needs more memory than there is RAM available, it will copy information from RAM into a special file on the hard disk, called a swap file or a paging file. Generally, the system will copy the memory that hasn't been accessed for the longest time into the swap file, so that the RAM can then be used for the other task that needs it at the time. For more information about how eCS configures virtual memory, type 'help swappath' at the eCS command prompt once you get it up and running. Ok, now that we've covered the basics, let's look at how you make choices in the Device Selection screen. The Configuration Options Available Here is a detailed explanation of each option, broken down by the five main areas on the screen: Miscellaneous, Display, ATA(PI)/(E)IDE, Misc storage, SCSI. ATA(PI)/(E)IDE Controller This area lets you select the driver used for this type of controller. There are three options. You can only select one of them. Enhanced: (DANI506) This driver has many improvements over the IBM driver so that it will work better and with a wider range of controllers. This driver was written by Daniela Engert. Standard: (IBM1S506) Check this option to use the IBM written driver. None: Check this option if you do not want a driver loaded. 2.IDE CD There are three options that you can use to configure any ATAPI devices in your system. The most common type of ATAPI devices are CD-ROM drives; other ATAPI devices include things like internal ZIP disks, some CD writing drives, and so on. You can only select one of the three options: Standard: Check this option to use the standard ATAPI driver for ATAPI devices. This is the driver written by IBM. Enhanced: Check this option to use the enhanced IDE driver for your IDE controller. This is the driver written by Daniela Engert, and includes many improvements to the IBM driver so that it will work better and with a wider range of devices. None: Check this option if you aren't going to be using any ATAPI devices; for example, if you are using a SCSI-only system you will want to select this option. 3.Load IDE before SCSI Check this option if you have both IDE and SCSI devices in your system and are booting from an IDE CD-ROM. If you have a mixed IDE and SCSI system and are booting from a SCSI CD-ROM, then make sure this option is unchecked. If you try to boot your computer and it doesn't work, changing this option is probably the first thing you should try. SCSI Support SCSI controllers are not loaded by default due to the large chance of conflict between different brands of drivers. However, there are some types of SCSI controllers that can create problems. Most notably, these devices tend to either be Adaptec, LSI, or Tekram controllers. If you have a SCSI controller in your computer and are having trouble getting the system to boot, find out what kind of controller you have and select the appropriate driver for your controller. Here is a list of the drivers that are on the eCS CD. You will need to check your system manuals or prior OS settings for the driver that is proper for your SCSI adapter. If the driver you need is not on the list then you will need to make eCS boot diskettes and modify the diskettes to load the new driver. The drivers that are included are: Selection --- Drivers loaded Adaptec AICU160 - AICU160.ADD Adaptec AIC78U2 - AIC78U2.ADD Adaptec AIC7870 - AIC7870.ADD Adaptec non-PCI - aha174x.add, aha154x.add, aha152x.add AdvanSys ASC - ASC.ADD BusLogic - btscsi.add, flashpt.add I20 Storage OSM - I2OXPORT.SYS, I2OSOSM.ADD Initio - INIA100.ADD, INI910U.ADD, INI910.ADD, INI610.ADD QLogic - ql40os2.add, ql510.add, ql10os2.add, ql12os2.add RAID - dac960.add, ipsraid.add, dpt20xx.add Symbios SYM_HI - SYM_HI.ADD Symbios SYM8XX - SYM8XX.ADD Tekram TMSCSIW - TMSCSIW.ADD Tekram TRM3X5 - TRM3X5.ADD MO drive attached - eCSDASD.DMD /OF MO disk large sector - n512dasd.flt Generic INT13 driver - ibmint13.i13 I2O Devices I2O stands for Input to Output, which is a new specification that may come to support many different types of computer devices. If you have any I2O devices in your PC, check this selection to load the I2O driver so that you can use them. Miscellaneous There are three groups of options in this area of the screen. The first allows you to configure the International options of eComStation, such as which keyboard you are using, which codepage you are using, which country you're in, and which time zone you are in. The second set of options allows you to select which drive you would like to use for your swap partition, if any, and where you would like the system initialization files to be stored. Usually, these files will be stored in a ram disk while the system is running, however, you can choose to have them stored on a hard disk so that you may keep any customizations you make to the system between boots. Finally, you can select whether you would like eCS to be able to run DOS programs, pause if there are any errors while the system is booting, and whether you would like to have the Warpcenter available to you after you boot the system. Each of these groups are described in more detail below. 1.International Settings There are four options in the International Settings section of the Miscellaneous area of the screen. They are as follows: Country Code: This option lets you select the number that represents your country of origin. There is a list available of all countries and their country codes in the online documentation. If you don't know your country code, select the default, and look up your country code after you have reached the desktop by typing "help country" at an eCS command prompt. Most of the time, the country code is the same three digit number as the one used for your country in the international phone system. Keyboard: This option lets you select which keyboard layout you will be using. If you don't know the code of the keyboard you are using, then boot the system and type "help keyb" at an eCS command prompt, and click on the 'layout' link in the command reference. You will see a complete list of all the keyboard layouts available to the system. Codepage: You can use this option to select which codepage you wish the system to use. If you aren't sure which codepage you would like to use, select the default and then type 'help codepage' at an eCS command prompt to see a complete list of all the codepages that are on the system. 2.System Configuration The following options allow you to customise the operation of eComStation as a system while it is booted from CD. Most of these options will work fine for most people, however, if you wish to change some aspects of how the system works, you can configure it from here. Of particular note is the section dealing with the INI.RC and INISYS.RC file. If you know how to customize these files, it is possible to completely customize the way eComStation looks and is organized by creating a custom version of these files and pointing the system to them instead of the ones on the CD. Please note that doing this is not for the faint-hearted; however, it is a very powerful customisation tool. Please refer to the online documentation in the eComStation Software Development Kit for more information. Swap Drive: This setting controls which drive the swap file will be stored on. It defaults to a RAM disk created by the system when it boots up, so as to avoid the extremely unlikely possibility of damaging any existing system on the hard disk. However, if you wish, you can point the system to a disk on the hard drive. This is especially useful on computers with 64 MB RAM or less. DOS Support: This setting controls whether or not you will be able to run DOS programs when booted from the eComStation CD. If you want to be able to run DOS programs, make sure this option is checked. Pause on Error: This setting controls whether or not the system pauses if there are any drivers not loading properly during the system boot. In general, if you are having some problems booting from the CD-ROM drive, leave this option checked. However, if you are customarily booting from the CD-ROM drive and you know everything works, you can disable this option to speed up boot times a bit. Use JJSCDROM: JJSCDROM is a replacement CD-ROM file system driver, and supports some of the more recent Microsoft Joliet formats not supported by the IBM driver. If you are having trouble accessing some CDs while in eComStation, try using this driver to see if it improves the ability to use those CDs. 1024x768: This controls whether or not you wish to boot the computer to a high-resolution desktop. Drive Letter: This controls some of the drive letter assignments eComStation will use when booted from the CD. The default is to use the RESERVEDRIVELETTER setting to force the CD-ROM to drive S: and to use drive Z: as the ramdisk for certain parts of the system. You can change these 1. RAM drive: 2. Reserved drive: 3. eCS CD drive: 4. User init file (INI.RC): 5. System init file (INISYS.RC):