ÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍ DocsBoot+ version 0.31á utilities documentation ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Copyright 1994-1995 Zac Schroff, all rights reserved ÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍ Introduction to the DocsBoot+ utilities ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ These are several small utilities included with DocsBoot+ for your convenience or as debugging help. None of these are actually part of DocsBoot+ itself, so they are grouped together in this documentation file instead of in the DocsBoot+ documentation file. Each utility has its own section, and all of them are but a couple to a few paragraphs in length. These programs are distributed only as part of the DocsBoot+ package and are distributed on the same terms as the rest of the package. If you are not familiar with them, here they are (copied verbatim from the DOCSBOOT.DOC file)... ÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍ Legal stuff ~~~~~~~~~~~ By using this product (DocsBoot+ and the associated documentation and installer program and utilities and the associated documentation), you agree to the following terms : 1) Neither the author nor any distributor is to be held liable for any damages of any kind from the use or abuse of this program or its associated products. 2) Neither the author nor any distributor is responsible for any damages caused by unauthorised changes to the program or its associated products. 3) You will not disassemble, decompile, or reverse- engineer the program or its associated products. 4) You will not tamper with the program or its associated products in any way except expressly provided for in the documentation or as implied in the setup and installation facilities. 4) You will only copy and distribute the program and its associated products as expressly provided in the documentation for the program. 5) The sole remedy for any malfunctions of DocsBoot+ or damages caused by such are limited to a refund of the cost of the program. 6) There is no warranty on DocsBoot+ or anything which is included with it. If you do not agree to ALL of these terms, you must not use this program or any of the associated products. If you paid a distributor for them, please return them and insist upon a refund. Several trademarks from various sources were mentioned somewhere in this document. Here is a listing of the trademarks and their owners (any not listed here are still the property of their respective owners) : Trademark Owning entity ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ AMI American Megatrends Incorporated BootManager International Business Machines corp. CompuServe CompuServe corporation[?] DR-DOS Digital Research corporation Digital Research Digital Research corporation DiskManager Ontrack research[?] DocsBoot, DocsBoot+ Zac Schroff DOSWatch Zac Schroff ExtraDrives Zac Schroff IBM International Business Machines corp. International Business Mac... International Business Machines corp. Microsoft Microsoft corporation MS Microsoft corporation MS-DOS Microsoft corporation Norton Utilities Peter Norton, then later Symantec corp. Ontrack Ontrack research[?] OS/2 International Business Machines corp. PC, PC-XT, PC-AT International Business Machines corp. PC-DOS International Business Machines corp. Toshiba Toshiba America corporation VersaBoot, VersaBoot II Zac Schroff Windows Microsoft corporation Windows NT, WinNT Microsoft corporation Toshiba-DOS is Toshiba's variant on MS-DOS. It appears to have fewer bugs than the Microsoft equivalent, and it gets along with more non-standard configurations. This is probably because Toshiba anticipated the strange demands the unique features in some of their laptop computers would provide. I have only tested Toshiba's 3.30 and 5.00 and found both to be quite good. I did use Toshiba's 2.11 for a short time, but I quickly upgraded to 3.30. Toshiba's 5.00 seems more like MS-DOS 5.00, including certain bugs not present in their 3.30. Note that ExtraDrives is NOT the product Xtra Drive, which is produced by somebody else (of whom I know little). ExtraDrives is a program which allows more than the normal two hard discs to be connected to a computer, and Xtra Drive is a hard disc compression utility. Besides, *I* know how to spell. ;-) DocsBoot, if anybody is still wondering after reading all this about DocsBoot+, was a boot sector for floppy discs which would transfer control to some other device (usually the hard disc) when it was booted. This was written because I accidentally left a floppy in the drive rather often at one time, and did not like having to physically remove it and press a key and wait for another boot try. DocsBoot was not very widely released, though it worked perfectly. Simpler programs are so much easier to write properly the first time. ÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍ The DocsBoot+ NameVol utility ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Included with DocsBoot+ is a program which will name partitions so that they have sensible names on the DocsBoot+ menu. Typically, the DOS or OS/2 command LABEL will do this for a given partition, but for some reason, they do not allow certain characters in volume labels. For ‘sthetic reasons, I like lower case and some special symbols in mine (For example `OS/2 Boot') and did not like the limits placed by the LABEL command. Hence, this program. NameVol will change the name (in the boot sector only, so the normal volume label remains the same) of a FAT volume. It allows any special characters which can be placed on the command line, and also has the option of simply displaying the labels on all volumes which can be labelled. The labels that NameVol displays (or changes) will be the ones displayed in the DocsBoot+ menu. Note that in order for NameVol to name a partition, that partition must be formatted with a DOS or OS/2 version which recognises the extended BPB introduced at about the time DOS 4.0x came out. It this is not the case, then NameVol will say that the partition can not be named, and will not try. If you are using a DOS version 4.0x or later, or OS/2 version 2.0 or later, and you get this message, you need to back up your drive, and reformat the drive with your current DOS or OS/2. This will install a boot sector which complies to the extended BPB. It may be possible to simply install system files (with the SYS command under DOS) then remove them, since this also updates the boot sector. To name a partition with NameVol, simply execute the NameVol command with the following command line : NAMEVOL d:name where `d' is the letter for the drive to be named, and `name' is the new name for the volume in the DocsBoot+ menu. Do not enclose the name in quotes, since NameVol takes the rest of the command (up to eleven characters) literally. To list the names for all drives which can be named, simply run the NameVol program without parameters, like this : NAMEVOL It will list all the drives which can be named, and what the name is for each one. If a drive can not be named, it will not be listed. Note that NameVol does not work on OS/2's BootManager partition, so if you want to change the name or serial number for that, you will have to use a disc editor of some sort. At this time, the same applies for non-FAT filesystems. Load the boot sector for the filesystem to change the name for. If the byte at offset 0026 (hex) in this sector is either 28 (hex) or 29 (hex) then change the bytes at 002B..0035 (hex, inclusive) to the name you want displayed for the partition (note that characters < 20 (hex) are translated to normal uppercase letters). ÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍ The DocsBoot+ PartScan Utility ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ This is a small program which scans the partition tables on all your hard discs. It will operate on all hard discs, not just the first two. However, due to the way it was implemented, it scans each disc completely before it continues to the next. This tends to distort the apparent order of partitions. In order to interpret the output properly you will need to keep in mind that DOS and OS/2 (and many other operating systems) load all primary partitions first, then go back and look for extended partitions. This is intended mainly for a debugging tool, of whatever worth it may appear to be. I think keeping a copy of the output somewhere near the system would be helpful if anything happens to the hard disc partition tables. If you feel that you have some other use for it, feel free to experiment. If you find something that might be helpful to others, please write and explain it ÄÄ I will likely be delighted to include it in the documentation for the next version. ÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍ The DocsBoot+ DBInfo Utility ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ This utility has been included to provide a redirectable output of the current settings for DocsBoot+, along with some other useful information. The program examines the primary floppy disc and the primary hard disc for DocsBoot+. If DocsBoot+ is found, then some information about the found version, the current settings, and if the program is registered (if so, also the registration level and the serial number). The output is redirectible, so this can be used to list the current settings to a printer or modem, allowing them to be printed or easily displayed (though not set) over a modem. The output is, however, likely to be more than a single video page, so it should probably be piped through the MORE command, or a scrollback buffer used if it is being run remotely (the MORE command only works properly if it is run from the console). The items listed are described here in some detail. Most of them are intended to make debugging the program simpler for me, or resolving conflits simpler for you. They can also be helpful for copying your preferred settings down so you can easily remember them after you have configured DocsBoot+ to your liking. Program identification ÄÄ This is the identification string which tells the setup facility which version of the program it is seeing. Program revision date ÄÄ This is used to keep track of internal revisions, usually which are too minor to bother with a change in version numbers. Installation date ÄÄ This is the date on which the program was installed originally. Expiration date ÄÄ This is the date on which the program will stop operating, unless it has been registered. Note that beta expiration dates will take precedence over this if they are earlier, so if you have a beta late in it's period, this may not be correct. If your copy is registered, then this has no effect, because registered copies do not expire. Remaining boots ÄÄ This is the number of boots warning remaining AFTER the expiration before DocsBoot+ stops working. Note that this does not apply to registered copies, for the same reason as the above item does not apply. This is displayed in hexadecimal. System settings flags ÄÄ This is the complete bit-settings group It displays the current settings for every flag in the group. Last partition booted ÄÄ Part of the system settings flags. Next boot (FF=menu) ÄÄ Part of the system settings flags. Protect CMOS ÄÄ Part of the system settings flags. Protect MBR/BootSect ÄÄ Part of the system settings flags. Next boot no load ext. ÄÄ Part of the system settings flags. User settings flags ÄÄ This is the complete bit-settings group. It displays the current settings for every flag in the group. Boot menu display ÄÄ Part of the User settings flags. Extra details ÄÄ Part of the User settings flags. Timed boot ÄÄ Part of the User settings flags. Include non-bootable ÄÄ Part of the User settings flags. Include floppies ÄÄ Part of the User settings flags. Use default ÄÄ Part of the User settings flags. Confirm ^C/^B reboot ÄÄ Part of the User settings flags. Confirm unformatted ÄÄ Part of the User settings flags. Install DriveSwap ÄÄ Part of the User settings flags. Search for extensions ÄÄ Part of the User settings flags. Alt down skips exten. ÄÄ Part of the User settings flags. Default partition num ÄÄ This indicates which partition will be booted as the selected partition if Use default is enabled. Delay time (tics) ÄÄ This is the number of tics (there are about 18.2 tics in a second) that DocsBoot+ delays before choosing the last booted or the default automatically, if Timed boot is enabled. This is displayed in hexadecimal. Extra ÄÄ These should always be zero if the installed version of DocsBoot+ is the version this version of DBInfo was included with. Registered? ÄÄ If this is yes, the program will no longer bother you about registering and the things you lose by not registering. Registration level ÄÄ This is the registration level (testing group or single system or site or bundled) of the copy of DocsBoot+. This should only be displayed if Registered? is yes. Serial number ÄÄ This is the serial number for DocsBoot+. This should only be displayed if Registered? is yes. ÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍ The DocsBoot+ OS2Fixup Utility ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I have included, for the convenience of OS/2 users, a program allows OS/2 to be installed on drives other than C: without the use of IBM's BootManager (which OS/2 wants before it will do so, though it is perfectly capable otherwise). This program is a small batch job (OS2FIXUP.CMD or OS2FIXUP.BAT) file which will modify the floppy based install. It will also patch the CD-ROM install, but in order to do this, you must have a partition other than the one you are installing to with some free space (about 30MB for v2.x, and about 45MB for 3.0) to use as a work drive, IN ADDITION TO the drive which you wish OS/2 installed on. This installation patch, unlike the NTFixup utility, has been tested reasonably throroughly. It has been found to work properly on OS/2 versions 2.0, 2.1, 3.0, and several betas, but I have not tried it on other versions. The OS2Fixup utility will describe itself if it is run without parameters. Please read the descriptions thoroughly before running it on your installation discs. ÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍ The DocsBoot+ NTFixup utility ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I have included, for the convenience of Windows NT users, a program which will move NTBoot to the NT partition and patch it so that its primary purpose is to boot Windows NT, not as a boot manager. Note that this utility will also allow IBM's BootManager to work with the NTBoot faculity, making Windows NT installations slightly less painful (and NT users probably need every relief they can get!). However, due to the way NT behaved (or, rather, failed to) on my system, THIS PROGRAM HAS NOT BEEN THOROUGHLY TESTED. I have not had the opportunity to test it as I had hoped, nor do I intend to try any further experiments with NT until I get a new version or find somebody else who does not mind being a test subject. The NTFixup program describes itself and its operation if you run it without parameters. Please read it thoroughly before running it on your Windows NT setup. ÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍ The IDE StandBy driver ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ This is an extension for DocsBoot+ which will enable the standby feature in many IDE hard discs which support it. It does not go resident, and is of no use unless your IDE discs support a standby mode. It will, however, configure the timed standby mode so that your drives will go into standby when they have not been accessed in some period of time, and this appears to remain in effect even under OS/2. Currently, it is configured to expect four hard discs, two on the primary controller as master and slave, and two on the secondary controller as master and slave. Users of dual-port boards will probably find the `auxiliary' port to be the secondary. The standby timeout value used by default is 5 minutes (sixty intervals of five seconds each). To change any of the settings, you will need a hex editor (this is a fairly simplistic extension and it has no setup facility). Load the file into the hex editor. It should fit neatly being only one sector (512 bytes). Here are the contents of this file : Bytes Contents ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ 0000..01CF DO NOT CHANGE 01D0..01E8 Port and drive ID for each drive 01F0 Drives to try to set standby on 01F1 DO NOT CHANGE 01F2..01F9 Standby timeout values for each drive 01FA..01FF DO NOT CHANGE WARNING : I RESERVE THE RIGHT TO CHANGE THESE ADDRESSES IN THE FUTURE. PLEASE MAKE SURE THAT THE BYTES 1C0..1C8 ARE THE STRING `DocsBoot', AND THAT THE DWORD AT 1CC IS AT LEAST (IN HEX) 19950205. The port and drive ID for each drive should only be changed by someone who knows their system intimately and understands (at least minimally) how the IDE hard discs work. The port is a word indicating the I/O address of the Status/Command port, and the drive ID is the value A0 for the master, B0 for the slave. The port comes first, then the drive ID. The default value is {01F7,A0,01F7,B0,0177,A0,0177,B0, 0000,00,0000,00,0000,00,0000,00} (only the primary and secondary ports have standard addresses defined). The drives to try to set standby on is a bitset. A bit being on (set) indicats that that drive is to be issued the command which enables timed standby mode. The zeroth drive (master on primary) is bit zero, the next drive bit 1, &c. The default here is 0F, which indicates the first four drives. Note that if a drive is not present or does not respond, the program will continue anyway and WILL NOT PRINT AN ERROR MESSAGE. This was to eliminate those unnerving errors like `your fourth hard disc is not responding properly' on a single hard disc system. The standby timeout values for each drive is a byte indicating the number of five-second intervals of no activity before the drive enters standby mode. The default value here is 3C, indicating sixty of these five-second intervals, or five minutes. ÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍ [end of file]