Ref: 99980154 Title: Customer Care Bulletin, January 1985 Date: 1/1/85 Copyright 3Com Corporation, 1991. All rights reserved. .h1;ETHERSTART EtherStart is an integrated circuit or ROM that plugs into a socket on your EtherLink card. EtherStart works with EtherShare software version 2.2 running on an IBM PC or AP server to start your IBM PC from a specially created START volume on the server. EtherStart was designed to use the option of a diskless PC. Optimal installation is in a diskless PC or a PC with no hard disk, eliminating the necessity of floppy diskettes. However, a non - bootable hard drive can be accessed by adding the device driver to the ENET.SYS file in the start volume. Before you can start your PC across the network, you must install the EtherStart ROM in your EtherLink card, change the memory jumper(s) to enable, and create a special START volume on your server. You may then boot your PC by leaving the disk drives empty and open and powering up. If a diskette is in drive A, the PC will boot from this diskette and will not be EtherStarted. EtherStart complements the IBM PC's normal starting sequence by adding a third option. Without the EtherStart PROM, the PC will first try to load DOS from the diskette drive. If there is no diskette in the drive or if there is no diskette drive at all, it will look for DOS on an IBM fixed disk drive (either an XT or PC expansion disk). Finally, if there is no fixed disk drive, IBM ROM BASIC will begin to execute. Once EtherStart has been installed, the IBM PC will still try to load DOS from the disk drive first. If there is no diskette in the drive, EtherStart will attempt to log you in to your server and load DOS from a START volume over the network. If EtherStart is unable to find a START volume it will default to ROM BASIC. You can create an EtherStart volume with the STARTVOL batch file which is on your EtherSeries/DOS diskette. EtherStart is compatible with the IBM PC, IBM PC-XT, Compaq, and Compaq Plus. EtherStart will operate with an IBM PC-XT or Compaq Plus; however, an XT or Compaq Plus that has started using EtherStart cannot access its own fixed disk drive. EtherStart will not function if the I/O base address of the EtherLink card has been changed from the factory setting (300H). If an expansion peripheral requires a change in the I/O base address, it cannot be used with EtherStart. However, the DMA and Interrupt jumpers may be changed as required. NOTE: EtherStart will only allow starting from your own START volume or a public START volume owned by the server (e.g., SYS.START). Public volumes owned by other users cannot be used for starting except by their owners. Refer to the EtherStart User's Guide for a more comprehensive explanation of installation and use. The EtherStart User's Guide is included with the EtherStart PROM (Part Number 3C502). .h1;NEW TALLGRASS DRIVER BOARD HAS REGISTRATION PROBLEMS Tallgrass has a new version of their Rev. H driver board which has problems with our network. If you have this version of the board and try to register the server, initially everything looks fine. However, when you start the dedicated mode server, you may get the error message "CAN'T RETRIEVE SERVER NAME". Tallgrass has isolated the problem and has a fix for it, Tallgrass Software Release 4.26. If you encounter this situation, call Tallgrass technical support at (913) 492 - 1496. PROBLEM WITH TALLGRASS BACKUP PROGRAM DO NOT USE THE TALLGRASS BACKUP PROGRAM WITH THE STANDARD MODE SERVER! Running the Tallgrass TGBACKUP program while a PC server is running in standard mode can destroy the data on your disk. The proper method of performing backups of your volumes is to: (1) Shutdown the Server (2) Reboot (3) Select the "EXIT TO DOS" selection from the first menu after your start the server (4) Run TGBACKUP to make backup copies of your volumes. See "Backup and Restore" in the EtherShare section of the PC Network Server Administrator's Guide for additional information. .h1;CONNECTING TWO PARALLEL PRINTERS TO A PC SERVER To run two parallel printers attached to a PC or XT server, you must make sure that one is configured as LPT1: and the other as LPT2:. If you are using the IBM monochrome board for the first parallel port, it is already configured as LPT1:. If you then put an IBM parallel port card in the machine, you must be sure that it is configured as LPT2: (refer to the IBM documentation for information on how to change the jumpers). In addition, you can use a third party parallel card for the second port (such as AST or Quadram), as many of these may be configured to operate as either LPT1: or LPT2:. /CA .h1;ETHERSERIES 2.2 INFORMATION The following information appears in the 3Com Release Notes, August 9,1984. USING THE "ES UMOD" COMMAND: When the PC server is running in Standard Mode, a user who is logged in at the server must supply an extra parameter to change his password. The command syntax to use is "ES UMOD username (newpassword)", instead of "ES UMOD (newpassword)" as is described in the EtherShare User's Guide. NOT ENOUGH MEMORY: If you don't have enough memory in your PC running as a user station or server, the ES and MAIL programs may freeze the machine. Check available memory and memory requirements if this happens. VOLUME NAME DOESN'T CHANGE: When you create an EtherShare volume, the name of that volume is placed in the directory during the formatting process. It is displayed each time you use the DOS DIR command to list the files on that volume. If you later change the name of the volume with the ES MOD or ES RENAME command, the volume name displayed on the DIR is not changed. The ES DIR command will always display the correct volume name. IBM PC USING DOS 3.0 AS A USER NODE When an IBM is (1) running DOS 3.0, and (2) connected onto the network as a user node, and the following incorrect message appears at login time "YOUR ETHERSHARE DRIVES ARE A: THROUGH D:" the user will have only two logical drives to link volumes to. To correct the message and provide four logical drives for linking volumes to, use the following solution to edit the ENET.SYS file using the debug facility in the following manner: Debug Enet.sys -e 241 70 -e 575 70 -w xxx bytes written -q At login time, the corrected message providing four drives to link to for an IBM PC should be: "YOUR ETHERSHARE DRIVES ARE C: THROUGH F:" and for an IBM XT: "YOUR ETHERSHARE DRIVES ARE D: THROUGH G:" /CA .h1;USING THE DIAGNOSE PROGRAM CORRECTLY There appears to be some confusion about running the EtherSeries Diagnostics. The diagnose program is found on the EtherSeries User diskette. There are two ways that diagnose can be run, either as a standalone PC, (not connected to the network) using a loopback plug, or with two or more PC's connected. Running Diagnose as a Standalone with a Loopback Plug, When the diagnose program is run at a personal computer, the user should not be logged onto the network, and the PC should be running DOS. Install a loopback plug. At the A> prompt, type "DIAGNOSE L". Watch for any error messages. Running Diagnose When Connected With Other PC's To check the transmission of data between user nodes, both user nodes should be running DOS. (This will mean bringing down the network if the server is in question.) The diagnose program should then be run simultaneously at both nodes. At User Node 1 at the A > prompt type "DIAGNOSE". At the second user node's A > prompt, type "DIAGNOSE 7". The process can be reversed to check for errors on User Node 2. For an expanded explanation of the Diagnose Program, the various options and error messages, refer to the EtherSeries User's Guide, Installation section. /LB .h1;RESTORING INFORMATION ON THE AP SERVER At some time you may experience the hard disk crashing on your AP server. A technician may need to repair or replace the hard disk. To later restore the data onto the repaired or replaced disk you will need to depend on your latest backup, which has been done on either diskettes or tape. It cannot be stressed enough to keep to a REGULAR backup schedule. This is very important if current data is to be restored. The following information explains how to restore data onto a repaired or replaced hard disk on an AP server. The first step is to reformat the new or repaired hard disk. Refer to the Altos Diagnostic Manual for instructions on how to reformat the disk using the ADX diskette found in the back of this manual. Remember, reformatting the disk is a lengthy process which will take approximately 10 hours. After the disk has been reformatted, reinstall the AP Server Ethershare software, Diskettes 1, 2, and 3. At this time you may want to install EtherPrint and EtherMail. After EtherSeries software has been installed, log in from a user node as the server using the server's name and create all of the users that were on the network as of the last backup. (The administrator of the network should keep a list of these users as they will not be contained in the backup log.) If you forget to create any users on the system, that user's volumes will not be restored. If you decide that a user's volume does not need to be restored, omit that user's name until after the restore process is complete. NOTE: The backup log is a binder or log book that is kept by the Network Administrator containing information on when the last backup was done, and the tapes or diskettes used in the backup. Refer to the EtherSeries Administrator's Guide in the Backup section under listings for instructions on producing a listing to be kept in the backup log.