System Commander 7 Notes CONTENTS A. Introduction F. OEM Windows - erases all! B. What's new in SC7 G. Troubleshooting C. Features H. Technical Support D. Important Issues I. Disk managers/EZ-Drive E. OS Restrictions J. Ordering Information A. Introduction System Commander 7 provides the best OS manager with full partitioning in one integrated package! It's OS Wizard makes it the easiest and safest way to add a new OS! System Commander 7 is your installation assistant! When you are ready to install a new OS, let System Commander 7 take care of all of the details that you normally worry about when getting ready to install new OSes. IMPORTANT When installing new OSes or changing partitions we always recommend you have a backup of any important data and programs. B. What's New in SC7 Windows Installation Our new Windows installer makes it quick and simple to install System Commander under Windows 95/98/Me/NT/2000/XP. SC7 can be installed in systems that have FAT, FAT32, or NTFS partitions. We also include our DOS installer for use with other OSes. Full Graphics The OS Selection menu now appears in full graphics! It supports resolutions up to 1600x1200 for those monitors and video cards that support it. In addition you can change the visual appearance with different graphic skins. See our web site for more skins and the developer's kit to make your own skins at: www.v-com.com/support/main_sc7 Includes the full Partition Commander 6 You get the full power of the Partition Wizard to automate your partitioning tasks. For those users who like to do manual partitioning, the graphical manual partitioning feature makes it easy! With the built in Partition Commander you can create, delete, copy, move, format, and even resize existing partitions. It includes resize for Windows 95/98/Me/NT/2000/XP and Linux partitions (FAT, FAT32, NTFS, Linux Ext2, and Linux Swap). Also included is our NTFS and compressed NTFS to FAT/FAT32 converter. Other new features * Support for all the latest OSes and variants, including Windows XP * Expanded OS Wizard functions for Linux * Super-hiding for NTFS partitions allows you to safely have multiple versions of Windows NT/2000/XP on the same system. * Partition Explorer allows you to look into FAT/FAT32/NTFS partitions and see the directory and files. * Partition Explorer Editor to view and make simple edits to text files such as BOOT.INI or AUTOEXEC.BAT. Works for files in FAT/FAT32 and NTFS partitions. C. Features With System Commander 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. Key Benefits * Management of up to 100+ different operating systems: up to 32 FAT compatible OSes in one partition up to 56 primary partitions on up to 14 drives up to 16 OSes in logical partitions up to 4 OSes which must boot through a non standard MBR * Special diskette drive support boot from A: or B: even if diskette booting is turned off in your BIOS setup. * Menu selections are offered before any operating system runs * Automatic management of hidden system files and configuration files such as AUTOEXEC.BAT, CONFIG.SYS, BOOT.INI, etc. * 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 * Automatically saves newly installed OS versions * View partition information and change bootable status * Master Boot Record and MultiFAT partition boot record virus detection and repair * View and edit files such as CONFIG and AUTOEXEC at boot time Technical Highlights * Fully compatible with Windows 95/98/Me, Windows NT/2000/XP, Linux, OS/2 Warp, NetWare, Solaris, other Unix variants, DOS and all other PC compatible OSes * Can be installed into any standard FAT, FAT32 or NTFS partition. * No bytes remain resident in memory * Comprehensive boot validity checks and recovery options * Zero overhead - Allows you to use the full power of your system with each OS. D. Important Issues Disk Compression System Commander is fully compatible with disk compression, but must be installed in the non-compressed C drive. Normally System Commander will identify the non-compressed disk for you. One of System Commander's many features includes the ability to run multiple OSes in different partitions or the same partition. When using disk compression, we strongly recommend always installing each new OS in a separate partition, rather than together with other OSes. Disk compression is very specific to the OS and version you have installed. For example, PC-DOS 6 disk compression is quite different and incompatible with MS-DOS 6's disk compression. Many new OSes, such as NT and OS/2 will be unable to see any compressed DOS or Windows 95/98 disks. Technical support cannot assist you with problems of trying to run multiple OSes inside a single compressed partition. The best strategy, when you must have disk compression software, is to always place new OSes in their own isolated partition. GoBack is not compatible Our testing with GoBack versions 1 through 3 has shown it is not compatible with any boot management products including System Commander. If GoBack is installed prior to System Commander, it will not let System Commander complete its installation. If System Commander is installed prior to GoBack, then GoBack will disable System Commander. The reason for these problems is that GoBack partly resides in the MBR, where boot management products must reside. While System Commander has a special MBR boot feature that solves this obstacle, GoBack also alters the FAT and FAT32 partitions into custom non-FAT partitions. (which also prevents partition resizing). If you would like to have boot management and the ability to have partitioning features like resize, optimize and FAT conversions, you might consider an alternative product. Windows Me and XP provide a similar service as part of the OS. Linux Installations If an extended partition exists, yet has no logical partitions, OS Wizard will only allow Linux to be installed into primary partitions. If you have this scenario, please delete the empty extended partition first, and let the OS Wizard automatically create the extended partition and logicals for Linux. E. 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. These restrictions are automated with the OS Wizard. If you do not wish to use the OS Wizard, these facts will help you determine how a new OS can be installed. This is not a comprehensive list and vendors may change the limitations in future versions. In general, if an OS can be installed somewhere, System Commander can boot it. 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 min MB OS Name Vendor Drives partition size notes AIX IBM 0 only no 100 9 BeOS Be any yes 250 BSDI Unix Berkely Software 0 only no 80 Btron 1B Btron 0 only no 40 Coherent Unix Mark Williams any no 15 9 CP/M Digital Research 0 only no 10 9 CTOS Unisys 0 only no 40 DOS all 0 only no 3 DOS/V IBM/Microsoft 0 only no 5 FreeBSD all any no 80 Interactive Unix Sun Microsystems 0 only no 20 JexeOS Toshiba 0 only no 100 Linux all any yes 15 Lynx Lynx Real-Time 0 only no 50 Minux all 0 only no 30 9 NetWare v2 Novell 0 only no 20 NetWare v3 & v4 Novell 0 only no 55 2 NetWare v5 Novell 0 only no 500 2 NeXT Step Next 0 only no 100 9 OpenStep Next 0 only no 120 9 Open Server SCO 0 only no 100 5 OS/2 v1.x IBM 0 only no 20 1 OS/2 v2 to v4 IBM any yes 40 1,4 Pick Pick Systems 0 only no 50 1 QNX QNX Software 0 only no 50 Solaris v4 Sun Microsystems any no 70 7 Solaris v7 Sun Microsystems any no 500 7 Solaris v8 Sun Microsystems any no 600 7,10 Theos Theos Software 0 only no 10 UnixWare SCO/Novell 0 only no 80 5 Venix Venturcom 0 only no 100 9 Windows 95 Microsoft 0 only no 40 1,6,8 Windows 95J Microsoft 0 only no 80 1,6,8 Windows 98 Microsoft 0 only no 250 1,6,8 Windows 98J Microsoft 0 only no 250 1,6,8 Windows Me Microsoft 0 only no 500 6,8 Windows NT v3.1 Microsoft 0 only no 90 1,3 Windows NT v3.5 Microsoft 0 only no 100 1,3 Windows NT v4.0 Microsoft 0 only no 220 1,3 Windows 2000/NT Microsoft 0 only no 800 1,3,8 Windows XP Microsoft 0 only no 1500 1,3,8 notes: 1 - OS can be installed in the MultiFAT partition. 2 - This OS is launched after DOS is booted. Information is stored in a separate non-bootable partition. 3 - A portion of the NT boot software is installed in the MultiFAT partition. The remainder can be installed in any FAT primary or logical partition on any drive. 4 - If installed outside the MultiFAT partition, 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 System Commander. 5 - The installation may move partitions around, causing problems for other OSes. In addition, when partitions are moved like this, System Commander 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 System Commander 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 - Can be installed in and understands FAT32 partitions. (For Windows 95, only OSR2 supports FAT32). 9 - This OS is no longer available, either due to being discontinued on the PC, and/or the manufacturer is no longer in business. 10 - Solaris 8's installation will alter the CHS portion of the partition table in every partition. This can result in other OSes no longer working, and may prevent SCPE from working (if it is not in an EBIOS type partition). For expert users, the SCIN partition editor can be used to restore the correct values. More information may be available on our web site. F. OEM Windows 95/98 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-FAT 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. System Commander has no control over how the OEM Windows erases partitions. USE CAUTION when installing an OEM version on a system that has 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 the Troubleshooting chapter. 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. System Commander's installation always provides a Disable/Remove option available from the hard disk or the diskette. Refer to the uninstallation instructions, should you need to do this. BootXY. If immediately after installation a "BootXY." message appears, see the Troubleshooting chapter. Look 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 thebasic type of error that occurred. These problems include: 0 - Error reading the master boot record 1 - No FAT partition found on drive 0 2 to 5 - After looking at all 4 partitions, either the OS partitions that were found had: a) disk errors reading sectors, or b) 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 FAT32 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 Microsoft'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. During a partition resize, power is lost or a reset occurs Should a power fail or a reset occur during the resize operation you will be prompted during boot up to insert the Restart diskette (DISK 2) in the drive and boot from it. It will start the OS Wizard restart process and complete the resize operation. If you were running OS Wizard for a new OS installation, the remaining preparation steps will not occur. On a reboot you may be asked to use your new OS boot diskette. Select Cancel and return to the OS Wizard (Alt-O). Reselect the same OS and the process will complete. 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 this chapter as well as the SCIN troubleshooting database (see prior section for details). Technical support on SC7 is available to registered users for 30 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 as well as the About box at boot- time and from the SCDISK utility. Please check our web site for our current support policies. For technical support to help you quickly, if at all possible, please run the SCOUT.EXE 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 through our web site at WWW.V-COM.COM. Please include a brief description of the problem, and the version and serial number found on the registration card. It is also helpful to describe what OSes and versions you are using, and how the drive is partitioned. (Running the SCOUT.EXE utility will do all this for you). While we can help you with problems related to System 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/EZ-Drive Some older systems use a software disk manager like Disk Manager or EZ-Drive/EZ-BIOS. These products allow large drives to work with old systems. Older systems could not support drives greater 8GB, and very old systems were limited to 540 MB. If your system is newer than 1996, the BIOS will support large drives directly, and there should be no need to have or use any disk manager. System Commander is compatible with current releases of these products. Versions of EZ-Drive prior to version 9 do not seem to always upgrade properly, and may still 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 95 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, is necessary to use a boot diskette that boots BEFORE the disk manager runs. Use a partitioning product (like Windows/DOS FDISK) and delete all partitions. These partitions usually appear as non-FAT. 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 System Commander Web site. End of Notes