************************************************************* ASPI500.TXT ************************************************************* This file describes the features and use of the Symbios Logic SDMS ASPI manager for the DOS operating system environment. This document is specific to ASPI5000.SYS version 4.00.00. It is divided into the following sections: Introduction Features Description Manual Installation Command Line Options Troubleshooting ************************************************************ ********************* Introduction ************************* This file should be read if you have decided not to use the DOS installation program and plan to perform a manual installation of the ASPI5000.SYS driver. A manual installation allows you to change certain default values for the driver through command line options. * Features * Supports Advanced SCSI Programming Interface (ASPI) applications Supports multiple adapters using a single copy of the driver Coexists with other ASPI drivers Supports all details of the ASPI specification including Command Code #6 (Get Disk Drive Info) Supports a uniform set of command line options that can control separately every device on the SCSI bus Provides full functionality in a reasonable driver size (less than 30 KB at initialization time, and around 10-15 KB after initialization) * Description * ASPI500.SYS is an ASPI manager which provides an interface to popular ASPI applications in the DOS environment. Some of the ASPI applications supported include CorelSCSI!, Sytos Plus, and Central Point Tape Backup. These provide support for CD-ROM, tape, scanner, and other SCSI peripherals. ***** How to Manually Install Your ASPI500.SYS Driver ****** 1. Use the COPY command to copy the ASPI500.SYS driver from the driver diskette to your boot disk. 2. Add the following command line to your CONFIG.SYS file: DEVICE=C:ASPI500.SYS This line must be added to the CONFIG.SYS file after the Card and Socket Services drivers. The C: specifies the location to which the ASPI500.SYS driver was copied in step one. For example: DEVICE=C:\PCCARD\ASPI500.SYS if the driver was copied to C:\PCCARD. After the ASPI500.SYS driver is installed, CorelSCSI software (or other ASPI device drivers) may also be installed. ************ ASPI500.SYS Command Line Options *************** The ASPI500.SYS driver has numerous embedded functions which are accessed via switches on the command line. These are explained individually in the following sections, but may be used in combination. * Using the Timeout Option * The ASPI driver expects commands to complete within a reasonable amount of time. When this does not happen, the driver initiates a recovery process that may end up with a SCSI hard reset. Because the driver adjusts the default timeout value depending on the type of devices it sees attached to the SCSI bus, this option is rarely needed. To change the time out for all devices to 300 seconds, the line in CONFIG.SYS that loads ASPI500.SYS should look like this: DEVICE=C:ASPI500.SYS TIMEOUT=300 To change the timeout value only for a specific target device with a SCSI ID of 4, the line in CONFIG.SYS that loads ASPI500.SYS should look like this: DEVICE=C:ASPI500.SYS TIMEOUT=(300,4) * Using the Sel_Timeout Option * This option allows you to specify the period of time the host will wait for a SCSI peripheral to respond to a Selection command. The SCSI specification suggests a default time-out of 250 milliseconds, but many devices (especially hard disks) respond to selection within 10 microseconds! The ASPI500.SYS driver uses a default of 50 milliseconds. You can specify a decimal value not exceeding 255 milliseconds. For example, to change the selection time out to 250 milliseconds, the line in CONFIG.SYS that loads ASPI500.SYS should look like this: DEVICE=C:ASPI500.SYS SEL_TIMEOUT=250 * Using the Busy_Retry Option * The ASPI500.SYS driver normally returns Hardware_Busy status (0x08 hex) when it finds a device busy. Then a high level driver (such as a CorelSCSI device driver) manages the Hardware_Busy status. If this option is enabled, the driver will continue to try a command every 1/4 second until the device returns a non-busy status. This option is disabled by default. To switch this option on, the line in CONFIG.SYS that loads ASPI500.SYS should look like this: DEVICE=C:ASPI500.SYS BUSY_RETRY * Using the Cards Option * This option reserves ASPI500.SYS driver resources for a specified number of cards that may be dynamically configured at a later time. (No PCMCIA resources are actually reserved - only the ASPI driver's internal resources are reserved.) The default is one card, to tell the ASPI500.SYS driver to expect two SCSI5000 PC cards (the maximum allowed), the line in CONFIG.SYS that loads ASPI500.SYS should look like this: DEVICE=C:ASPI500.SYS CARDS=2 Note: When using two cards, remember that each card is configured to the slot it is in at boot time. If you remove a card, you must replace it in the same slot from which it was removed. * Using the Verbose Option * This option is used to display initialization time messages. The driver will always display a banner with copyright notices. If this option is switched on, adapter and device descriptions are also displayed.To have command line options that pertain to devices also displayed, use the Dev_Opt option with this option. To activate the Verbose option, the line in CONFIG.SYS that loads ASPI500.SYS should look like this: DEVICE=C:ASPI500.SYS VERBOSE * Using the Dev_Opt Option * This option is used to display device features as specified in the command line. The Verbose option must also be enabled or there will be no display. See the Verbose option for more information. To activate the Verbose option with the Dev_Opt option, the line in CONFIG.SYS that loads ASPI500.SYS should look like this: DEVICE=C:ASPI500.SYS VERBOSE DEV_OPT * Using the File Option * There is normally a restriction on the line size in CONFIG.SYS. This option allows coding of command line options inside a file instead of on the command line in CONFIG.SYS. In this way you can code a large number of driver options conveniently. These option files are free-format, allowing you to code in one line or hundreds of lines. There is a limit on the file size the driver can read 500 characters per file. However, you can use this option within a file to nest files up to two deep. This option can be placed on the command line (or in a file) along with other options. The driver deals with the options in the order they appear. If the path/file_name specification has a ':' or a '\' character, the driver assumes that a full path specification has been coded. If neither of these characters appear, the driver will try to use it's own path. To cause the driver to read command line options in a file called 5000.cfg, the line in CONFIG.SYS that loads ASPI500.SYS should look like this: DEVICE=C:ASPI500.SYS FILE=5000.CFG In this example, the 5000.cfg file should be located in the same path as the ASPI500.SYS driver. The 5000.cfg file might look like this: VERBOSE DEV_OPT CARDS=2 * Using the Heads and Sectors Options * The ASPI driver automatically calculates disk drive geometry at startup time (for direct access devices only). However, there are certain situations where the high level device driver or a format utility might want a specific response from the ASPI driver regarding drive geometry. The Heads= and Sectors= options allow you to force the ASPI driver to report whatever values are required. The ASPI driver stores these values without verifying if they are correct. However, the ASPI driver ignores the Heads= and Sectors= options if the device is not a direct access device (peripheral device type = 00). To use the Heads= and Sectors= options to specify a 64 by 32 geometry for all devices, the line in CONFIG.SYS that loads ASPI500.SYS should look like this: DEVICE=C:ASPI500.SYS HEAD=64 SECT=32 To use the Heads= and Sectors= options to specify a 64 by 32 geometry only for a device with a SCSI ID of 4, the line in CONFIG.SYS that loads ASPI500.SYS should look like this: DEVICE=C:ASPI500.SYS HEAD=(64,4) SECT=(32,4) * Using the ID Option * This option allows you to specify a SCSI ID for the SCSI5000 PC Card. Each device including the PC Card on a SCSI bus must have a unique SCSI ID ranging from 0 to 7. Your SCSI5000 host adapter is preset to SCSI ID 7, which has the highest priority and allows it to control the bus. To use the ID option to specify a SCSI ID of 6 for your PC Card, the line in CONFIG.SYS that loads ASPI500.SYS should look like this: DEVICE=C:ASPI500.SYS ID=6 This syntax is used only when the ASPI500.SYS driver is supporting a single SCSI5000 PC Card. * Using the Parity Option * This option allows you to switch off parity checking on incoming transfers. SCSI parity checking is supposed to be done at the receiving end. When your adapter is driving a device that does not generate parity, the adapter's parity checking hardware can be disabled using this option. To use this option to disable parity checking, the line in CONFIG.SYS that loads ASPI500.SYS should look like this: DEVICE=C:ASPI500.SYS PARITY=NO * Using the Msg Option * Using this option the message system can be controlled on a per device basis. The ASPI driver normally uses Identify Message with every command. If a device does not respond well to the message system, this switch can be used to stop messaging with that device. The ASPI driver will not use ATN line or Identify Message. However, other devices will continue to function with full message capability. If the message system is shut off for a device several useful features are lost. These include: Disconnect/Reconnect with Target Synchronous Transfer Most SCSI-2 capabilities including Tagged Queueing To use the Msg option to switch off messaging for all devices, the line in CONFIG.SYS that loads ASPI500.SYS should look like this: DEVICE=C:ASPI500.SYS MSG=NO To disable messaging only for a specific target device with a SCSI ID of 4, the line in CONFIG.SYS that loads ASPI500.SYS should look like this: DEVICE=C:ASPI500.SYS MSG=(NO,4) ********************* Troubleshooting *********************** The ASPI500.SYS driver may display error messages at initialization time. The display format is either: Successfully installed for a successful installation, or Install Error: 10XX for the errors listed in the following table. 10xx (hex) Explanation ------------------------------------------------------------ 1001 Syntax Error in command line options. A context is displayed within quotes that shows the cause of the error. 1002 Number of adapter specifications in the command line exceeds the maximum number of adapters the ASPI driver can handle. 1003 Conflicting adapter port information. Uaually arises with [ ]-pairing for multiple adapter specification. Simplify the command line options if possible. 1004 Command line option specification for adapter was found incomplete. 1005 Cannot accept a default value - an explicit value must be coded. 1006 System Error. Should never happen. Call Customer Support for your system. 1007 Bad SCSI ID was found in the command line. Valid values are 0 to 7 only. 100A Too high a value for Card= option - maximum allowable value is 2. 100E PCMCIA error. Cannot locate Card Services. 100F PCMCIA error. Client registration failure. 1010 PCMCIA error. System socket count was zero. 1011 PCMCIA error. CIS/Tuples for a card are probably corrupted. 1012 PCMCIA error. Card configuration has failed. 1013 Bad selection time-out value was coded in the command line. Valid values are 0 to 255 (in milliseconds) only. 1015 Too many command line option files in the nesting. The maximum nesting is two levels. 1016 Failed to open a command line option file. 1017 Failed to read a command line option file. ----------------------------------------------------------- The ASPI500.SYS driver may also display the following error message: NO DEVICE FOUND ON THIS SCSI BUS For a possible correction, check the SCSI cable connections and/or ensure that termination power is supplied by a peripheral on the SCSI bus.