DAC960 DOS Driver Documentation : Version 2.00 September 21, 1994 The users are advised to go through this README document before starting to use the DOS driver. The DAC960 DOS driver directory contains the following files : FILE NAME SIZE DATE VERSION DESCRIPTION DACDRVR.SYS 4551 8/3/94 2.00 DOS driver for DAC960 DACMON.EXE 70744 6/4/93 1.11 Administration Utility for DAC960 under DOS ASPIDAC.SYS 15176 10/27/94 1.05 DOS ASPI driver for DAC960 DAFCDA.SYS 4696 6/16/93 1.00 DOS CD-ROM driver for DAC960 DAC960 BIOS : The BIOS provides access for up to 8 system drives per DAC960, under DOS ver 5.0 and above. The total DOS partition size is limited to 1024 cylinders (BIOS limit) and hence it does not make sense to have a system drive of more than 2048 MB, if it is used only for DOS. The maximum size of any DOS partition cannot be more than 1023 cylinders or 2046MB. DOS Driver : The BIOS on the DAC960 is usable only under the real mode of the operating system. In order to use the DAC960 under memory managers like Windows, QEMM etc., a DOS driver needs to be used. The DOS driver, DACDRVR.SYS supports only disk drives. The total DOS partition size on the DAC960 is limited to 2048 MB, even when the DOS driver is used. This driver has been updated to support ASPI Driver : The ASPI Manager has been upgraded. The new version is 1.05 The following modification was made to the ASPI Manager: 1. Virtual DMA support has been added to enhance the performance of the DAC-960 controller under windows and whenever extended memory is loaded. The ASPI Driver is used whenever non-disk devices are connected to the DAC960. Use the ASPI driver ASPIDAC.SYS under DOS, to access these devices. The ASPIDAC.SYS works in conjunction with the DOS driver, DACDRVR.SYS. CDROM Driver : Also a CDROM driver DAFCDA.SYS is included, to allow CDROM access under DOS, using a MSCDEX driver. The DAFCDA.SYS works in conjunction with the ASPI driver, ASPIDAC.SYS. Installation : If DAC960 is the only disk controller in the system, use DOS "fdisk" to create a DOS partition and use DOS "format c: /s " to high level format the DOS partition. Boot from the DAC960 disk. Copy the driver file, DACDRVR.SYS from the DAC960 DOS driver diskette to the root directory of the boot disk. Optionally, copy the driver file ASPIDAC.SYS (ASPI driver) and DAFCDA.SYS (CDROM driver) to the root directory of the boot disk. The DAC960 DOS, ASPI and CDROM drivers are installed with the help of CONFIG.SYS. The following lines are put in the CONFIG.SYS file to install the DAC960 DOS, ASPI and CDROM driver. DEVICE={DRIVE}:DACDRVR.SYS DEVICE={DRIVE}:ASPIDAC.SYS DEVICE={DRIVE}:DAFCDA.SYS In order to use the CDROM as a logical drive under DOS, the autoexec.bat file needs to load the MSCDEX driver as follows: {DRIVE}:MSCDEX /V /M:10 /D:MSCD001 Note : MSCDEX is available in DOS 6.0 or supplied by CDROM manufacturers. All the above statements need to be put before any line loading the memory manager, like himem.sys, qemm.sys, emm386.exe etc. DACDRVR.SYS, ASPIDAC.SYS and DAFCDA.SYS should always be installed in real memory and never in high, expanded or extended memory. If using another disk controller with DAC960, make sure all the drivers associated with the other disk controller are loaded before the DAC960 DOS driver. Copy the DAC960 Monitor utility DACMON.EXE from the DAC960 DOS driver diskette to the hard disk. This completes the installation of the DAC960 DOS driver. Known Bugs/Limitations : None of these drivers can be loaded in upper or high memory. ASPIDAC.SYS will behave unpredicatbly, under an "installation abort" condition or on a controller that has no drives connected to it. Do not use ASPIDAC.SYS when installation abort error is reported by BIOS. DACMON Utility : This is an administrative utility for the DAC960 DOS user. This utility can be invoked under DOS or the DOS screen of Windows. Once invoked by entering DACADM , it comes up with a main menu screen similar to the one shown below. _________________Disk Array Monitor V 1.00________________________ | | | ______________ ___________ ___________ ____________ ________ | | | Select DAC | | Standby | | Rebuild | | Chng Dev | | Quit | | | |____________| |_________| |_________| |__________| |______| | | | | ___________________________________________ | | | | | | |_________________________________________| | | | | ----------- Target--------> ___System Drive___ | | | 0> ONLN RAID-7 | | | Ch-0> ONL --- ONL --- | 1> CRIT RAID-5 | | | | 2> CRIT RAID-1 | | | Ch-1> --- DDD --- --- | | | | | | | | Ch-2> --- --- STB --- | | | | | | | | Ch-3> --- --- --- --- |________________| | | | | Ch-4> --- --- --- ONL | | | | | | ___________________________________ | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |______________________________________________| | | | |________________________________________________________DAC #1__| Fig 1.0 : Disk Array Monitor (Main Menu) Main Menu : The top portion of the screen lists the 5 options namely Select DAC, Standby, Rebuild, Chng Dev and Quit. The rectangular box below this displays details about the option currently selected. Below that a matrix of drives connected on various channels of the selected adapters are displayed. The left most column corresponds to SCSI ID 0 and SCSI ID is incremented for every column. The letters ONL, STB, DDD and --- are displayed for an Online, Standby, Dead and not present disk drive respectively. Below this is the message log box, where the description about the drive failures, status of standby or manual rebuilds etc. are displayed for the selected adapter. The last line displays the number of the currently selected DAC960. Use the left and right arrow keys to select one of the five options. displayed on the top of the screen. The selected option box is highlighted and also the box below the option box displays a brief description about the option. Hit the ENTER key to select the highlighted option. Select DAC : Once the Select DAC option is selected, a window pops up displaying the possible four DAC960s. Use the arrow keys to highlight the appropriate DAC960 that needs to be administered and hit Enter key to select it. The arrow keys can be used to select only a DAC960 controller present in the system. The main menu is displayed now and the currently selected DAC960's number is displayed on the last line of the main menu. Standby : This option is used to make a drive ( that has replaced a dead drive ) standby. Once this option is selected, the cursor jumps to the drive matrix area and allows the selection of the drive ( to be made standby ) using the arrow keys. Select a drive and hit Enter to make the selected drive standby. The controller will try to start the drive and on successful starting of the drive will make the drive a standby drive. Note only disk drives that are not part of any pack can be made standby drives. Hit Escape key to return to main menu. Rebuild : This option is used to rebuild a drive that was killed ( shown as DDD on the matrix area ) by the DAC960. Before this option is invoked, the killed drive has to be replaced by a properly working drive. Once this option is selected, the cursor jumps to the drive matrix area and allows the selection of the drive (to be rebuild) using the arrow keys. Select a drive to be rebuild and hit Enter to start the rebuild. The selected drive is then started, optionally allowed to low level format and rebuild. While the rebuild is going on, the Rebuild status is graphically displayed on a horizontal bar for every system drive that needs to be rebuild. Also the progress and completion status of the rebuild is indicated in the message log area of the main menu. On successful completion of Rebuild, the drive is made Online and indicated in the matrix by words ONL. Chng Dev : This option is used to quiet a SCSI channel on the DAC960, so that the dead drive on that SCSI channel can be replaced online for rebuilding. Once this option is selected, the cursor jumps to the matrix area and allows selection of the channel to be stopped using the arrow keys. Select a channel ( where the dead drive needs to be replaced ) and hit Enter to stop the activities on the channel. At this point of time disconnect the power cable to the dead drive and disconnect the SCSI cable on the dead drive. Plug in a new good drive with the same SCSI ID, connect the SCSI cable and power cable to it. Press a key to resume the channel activities. Note : The channel activities will automatically be restarted in about 30 seconds of stopping the channel (without updating the screen). Hence the drive removal and replacement needs to be done in less than 30 seconds. The removal and replacement can also be done in two stages, stopping the channel before removal and replacement. Quit : This option is used to terminate the program.