============================================================================= FirePort Series Win9x/WinNT4.0/DOS/BIOS README.1ST ============================================================================= 06/24/98 - Version 2.02 Diamond Multimedia Systems, Inc. ***************************************************************************** A. Information -------------------------------- Notes regarding the use and installation of your FirePort PCI SCSI Host adapter. A.1 Installing Windows NT 4.0 from Windows 9x or MS-DOS: YOU MUST HIT F6 when the message "Setup is inspecting your computer's hardware configuration" appears on your screen. Otherwise the machine will crash with an "INACESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE" message. If you encounter the crash, reboot your machine and press "F6" when the "Setup is inspecting..." message appears. A.2 Adding the FirePort to a Win9x system with an older Symbios adapter: You may see a problem with the Symbios driver not loading after the addition of the FirePort card. This occurs when the Symbios driver detects the SCSI chip used on the FirePort and decides to unload itself. (The FirePort is based on a newer, custom version of the Symbios chip, which is not supported by the Symbios driver.) To correct this, you must obtain the latest driver from Symbios Logic and perform the change driver function from the system properties panel. This version of the Symbios driver will cooperate with the FirePort driver and allow both products to function properly. Symbios can be reached at "http://www.symbios.com". A.3 Using Cd-Recordable drives with Windows NT 4.0: Many CDR drives are brought into the Windows NT system as standard CD-ROM drives. The CD-ROM class driver handles access to the device and prevents the CDR applications from accessing the CDR unit. There are 2 ways to work around this... One is to replace the CD-ROM class driver (cdrom.sys) with one that allows write access. The other is to manually disable the CDROM class driver while using the device as a writer. Below are specific instructions for each of these options: A.3.1 Replacing the CDROM.SYS driver for Windows NT 4.0: For your convenience, Diamond provides a replacement CDROM.SYS driver on the FirePort Utilities CDROM. This is a Beta version of an Elektroson driver and is provided without warrantee or support. Any use is at your sole risk and neither Diamond nor Elektroson is responsible for any effects of using this driver. To install the replacement CDROM.SYS driver, execute the CDRINST.EXE program located on the FirePort Utilities CDROM under the \NT4READ subdirectory. A.3.2 Manually disabling the CDROM.SYS driver for Windows NT 4.0: There are two main steps to disabling the driver. You must first set the driver to "manual" startup and then the system will allow you to stop and start the driver. The following is a step by step procedure for this. - Select "My Computer" - Select "Devices" - Scroll down to "Cdrom" and highlight it. - Select the "Startup..." button - Select the "Manual" setting - Select "OK" - Select "Close" - Reboot your system. When you are ready to use one of the CDR applications, you must stop the Cdrom driver before running the application by doing the following: - Select "My Computer" - Select "Devices" - Scroll down to "Cdrom" and highlight it - Select "Stop" - Select "OK" After this, the CDR applications will function properly, but you will not have normal access to any CD-ROM devices until you re-start the Cdrom driver. After exiting your CDR application you should restart the Cdrom driver via the above procedure. A.4 BIOS load problems with IBM Aptiva systems: Some older versions of IBM Aptiva systems will not load the BIOS from the FirePort card. This only affects systems running DOS or otherwise using the Int 13 BIOS code. (It is possible to run Windows 9x using the BIOS, but there is a significant performance penalty.) This problem can be corrected by downloading a new system BIOS from IBM. You should check with your IBM representative or look on the IBM web page at "http:\\www.ibm.com". This problem was experienced on an IBM Aptiva C73, P5-200 with a BIOS version of BGAUS4E. The system paused with an 1805 Resource conflict error message. The problem was corrected by downloading BIOS version BSTUS4B dated 8-15-96. A.5 Motherboards with Symbios SCSI controllers and Award BIOS: Some versions of Award system BIOS contain an older version of the Symbios SCSI controller code that conflicts with the FirePort BIOS. If the system BIOS does not provide an option to disable the onboard SCSI controller, it may be necessary to download a new system BIOS with a newer version of the Symbios code. Contact your system vendor for information on how to upgrade your system BIOS. A.6 FirePort 40 Dual Motherboard compatibility constraints: We have found compatibility problems with the FirePort 40 Dual adapter with certain older motherboards. This applies ONLY to the Dual adapter and NOT to the FirePort 20 or 40. This problem appears to be due to how the system BIOS initializes multi-function PCI cards. (The FirePort 40 Dual is implemented as a multi-function PCI device, rather than a PCI-to-PCI bridge.) If the FirePort 40 Dual is not recognized by your system, it may be necessary to upgrade your system BIOS. Specific motherboards that Diamond has found to evidence this problem: - Intel VS440FX PentiumPro motherboard with AMI BIOS. Solution: No BIOS upgrade available at ship date. Diamond recommends using the FirePort 20 or 40 in these systems. - Mitac PH5400V Pentium motherboard with Award BIOS. Solution: No BIOS upgrade available at ship date. Diamond recommends using the FirePort 20 or 40 in these systems. - Intel TigerEye (Found in Gateway P5-166, model no. BATC) BIOS revision: 1.00.06.CY1T Solution: Upgrade system BIOS to 1.00.08.CY1T. Available from Intel's web site. ------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------------------------- B. Upgrade Instructions: B.1 Upgrading the SCSI Miniport driver under Windows NT 4.0: 1 Select "My Computer" 2 Select "Control Panel" 3 Select "SCSI Adapters" 4 Select "Drivers" tab 5 Select "Add" 6 Select "Have Disk" button 7 Insert floppy and browse to "winnt" directory or browse to new driver location 8 You should see "Diamond Multimedia FirePort PCI SCSI Host Adapter" in the SCSI Adapter window. Select "OK" 9 When prompted to restart your computer, select "Yes" B.2 Upgrading the SCSI miniport driver under Windows 9x: 1 Select "My Computer" 2 Select "Control Panel" 3 Select "System" 4 Select "Device Manager" tab 5 Select "SCSI Controllers" 6 Select "Diamond Multimedia FirePort PCI SCSI Host Adapter" 7 Select "Properties" 8 Select "Driver" tab 9 Select "Change Driver" button 10 Select "Diamond Multimedia FirePort PCI SCSI Host Adapter" 11 Select "Have Disk" button 12 Insert floppy and browse to "win9x" directory or browse to new driver location 13 Select the "fireport.inf" file and hit "OK" 14 Select "OK" as needed to continue up the menu tree and complete the upgrade 15 When prompted to restart your computer, select "Yes" B.3 Upgrading the FLASH BIOS on the FirePort card: Instructions for using FLASHDMD.EXE to upgrade the FLASH BIOS for the Diamond Multimedia FirePort PCI SCSI Host Bus Adapter Cards. ********************* IMPORTANT ************************* This Flash utility is meant to be used ONLY with the Diamond FirePort product. ************************************************************ Directions: 1 After acquiring the FIREPORT.ROM and FLASHDMD.EXE files (from the Diamond web site or from the FirePort installation diskette), create a bootable DOS diskette. You must use DOS 5.0 or higher. Copy FIREPORT.ROM and FLASHDMD.EXE to the bootable DOS diskette. **see below 2 Insert the diskette into drive A:. Boot the system to the DOS prompt A:\>. 3 Type FLASHDMD and press Enter. 4 The first screen displayed indicates what files are necessary to upgrade and general instructions to upgrade. Press Enter to continue. 5 The Main window has 6 command lines. First do View Board Summary(3). Make certain that the utility identifies your SCSI controller. 6 Backup(2) the old version of the BIOS to the diskette. Give the file a unique name with a .CSB, .ROM, or .BIN extension. 7 Update(1) current SCSI BIOS. Press the SPACEBAR to select the adapter that you would like to upgrade. Press Enter to continue. Enter the file name of the BIOS to upgrade or press F2 to view the available files. There should be 2 files available: the BIOS file that was just backed up, and FIREPORT.ROM. If the BIOS image is on a different diskette, insert the diskette containing that version. 8 Highlight the file FIREPORT.ROM for the Diamond FirePort Host Adapter and press Enter. It will then display the file name and notify you that the file has been successfully read. Press Enter again. The system will prompt you whether or not to overwrite the BIOS that is currently flashed. Select "Y" to upgrade. The system will then display the card information and verify that the new BIOS is installed. Press any key. Reboot(5). 9 Verify the new BIOS has been installed by viewing the 3rd line of the SDMS banner (which should read PCI-4.xx.xx.xxx) when displayed. ** A bootable DOS diskette can be created by formatting it with the /s option (e.g., format a: /s). Do not install any memory managers or SCSI drivers on the diskette. A minimum of 200K of conventional memory is needed to execute the flash utility. Add the DOS mouse driver to AUTOEXEC.BAT for mouse control of the flash utility. ------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------------------------- C. Features Added and Problems Addressed ---------------------------------------- 1. New Windows NT and Windows 9x SCSI mini-port driver: - SCAM support is disabled by default. To enable SCAM support in the driver, add the line do_SCAM=1 in the extra settings page for the FirePort driver in Windows 9x. 2. BIOS (FIREPORT.ROM) 4.09.06: - Added support for Removable Media drives as boot devices. - Added Low level format option for INT13 drives. - Bootable CD-ROM support can now be enabled or disabled. - Added Bootable CD-ROM support for WORM drives. - Now supports up to 32 adapters. - Enhanced HELP support - Fixed system lockup problems when booting from CDROM - Fixed a problem with Intel 440LX motherboard when installing Windows NT 4.0 from CROM where an blue screen error message regarding your video not being displayed properly was given. - Fixed a memory placement problem due to BIOS conflicts between the FirePort and the recent Compaq Systems BIOS (11/19/97). 3. DOS ASPI Manager (ASPI8XX.SYS): - Added support for bootable CD's - Fixed a problem where the Window's 95 version of FDISK would not show the correct drive drive size for drives over 8.4GB. 4. DOS CD-ROM driver (SYMCD.SYS): - Fixed a problem where the SONY CDU-415 CD-ROM drive was unable to read CDs under DOS. 5. DOS Removable Disk driver (SYMDISK.SYS): - Fixed a problem where Iomega Zip and Jaz drives did not work properly under DOS (Real Mode only). 6. Updated FLASHDMD.EXE: - Updated support for flash roms. - Fixed a problem where the size of the current ROM file was displayed incorrectly when backing up the current flash ROM. 7. Added MSCDEX.EXE Microsoft DOS CDROM Extensions version 2.25 8. Renamed the Win95 directory to Win9x. We now support both Windows 95 and Windows 98 with the driver in this directory. D. Known Limitations -------------------- 1. Many removable drive vendors recommend against the use of Low-level Format or the FDISK command on a removable or optical drive. Please consult the documentation for such devices prior to doing this. 2. HP ScanJet 5p Scanners: Using in your photo application will cause the system to crash or become unstable. The proper install for this scanner should have a One-Button manager option. It is set to On by default and using the Acquire option will crash until the manager is properly loaded and the options adjusted. Properly loading the drivers to ensure that the scan button manager is loaded will take care of this. Please see the installation instructions for the HP ScanJet Drivers. 3. If your system BIOS supports BBS (BIOS Boot Specification), and there are 8 or more INT13 devices attached (including IDE and SCSI), then the system may lock after the device scan. This was found with Phoenix BIOS. In most cases, this is corrected with the latest version of your system BIOS. 4. Iomega ZIP Plus: Unexplained behavior when this device is attached to the FirePort (lockups going into Windows, blank screen, etc.) This problem has been determined to be a termination issue with the on-device termination of the Iomega ZIP Plus drive. This has been discovered with different models/brands of SCSI Host Adapters and Iomega is aware of the issue. The solution is to lower the bus speed of the SCSI Controller or add an additional device (with termination) to the ZIP Plus so the on-device termination will be disabled. See: "http://www.iomega.com/company/news/zplusbul.html" 5. Pioneer DVD & Sanyo CRD-254S CDROM Drives: Random Abort/Retry/Failures with DOS ASPI loaded when trying to read CDs. If you "Retry", the read should continue without problems. This has also been observed with other SCSI Host Adapters. These drives work fine in a Protected Mode (Windows) environment. 6. Systems with an AMI BIOS: Lock up at "setup is now inspecting your hardware..." with a bootable CDROM (El Torito) in the drive. We recommend upgrading to the latest system BIOS for your motherboard. 7. HP SureStore 6020 and Philips CDD2600 CDR Drives: Can not read data reliably from a CD while in DOS with the DOS ASPI drives loaded. This is a limitation of the drive and has been observed with other SCSI Host Adapters. These drives work fine in a Protected Mode (Windows) environment. 8. Micronics Spitfire and TigerCat motherboards: The current version of the Phoenix BIOS that is available on these motherboards causes a system lockup when using multiple FirePort adapters (or a single FirePort 40 Dual) due to issues with BIOS Boot Support. This problem has been corrected in the latest version of the Phoenix BIOS. ------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------------------------- Contacting DIAMOND ------------------ Diamond can be reached through a number of ways: DIAMOND - USA Headquarters : Diamond Multimedia Systems, Inc. 2880 Junction Avenue San Jose, CA 95134 Voice (Main) : (408) 325-7000 FAX (Main) : (408) 325-7070 WWW : http://www.diamondmm.com FTP : ftp://ftp.diamondmm.com Technical Support 7101 Supra Drive SW Albany, OR 97321 USA General Support: (541) 967-2450 Fax: (541) 967-2401 BBS: (541) 967-2444 Customer Service: 800-468-5846 Graphics, Multimedia, and I/O Support TDD: (541) 967-2451 -EMAIL- Technical Support: techsupt@diamondmm.com Pre-Sales: sales4u@diamondmm.com FirePort Support: fireport@diamondmm.com Germany Moosstrasse 18B D-82319 Starnberg, Germany Tech Support Telephone: +49 8151 266 330 Tech Support Fax: +49 8151 266 331 Fax On Demand: +49 8151 266 332 Mailbox: +49 8151 266 333 (Modem, up to 33,6 kbps) Mailbox: +49 8151 266 356 (Modem, k56flex / 56 Kbps) Mailbox: +49 8151 266 334 (ISDN, x.75) Office, Main Number: +49 8151 266 0 web site: www.diamondmm.de United Kingdom Diamond Multimedia Systems, Ltd. 610 Wharfedale Rd. Winnersh Triangle Wokingham, Berkshire, RG41 5TY England Tech Support Telephone: +44-1189-44 4444 Tech Support Fax: +44-1189-44 4445 Mailbox: +44-1189-44 4415 (Modem, up to 33.6 Kbps) Mailbox: +44-1189-44 1312 (Modem, k56flex / 56 Kbps) Office, Main Number: +44-1189-44 4400 web site: www.diamondmm.de Japan Diamond Multimedia Systems Maruchu-Nihonbashi Bldg 4F 10-14 Nihonbashi-Tomizawacho Chuo-Ku, Tokyo 103 Japan Tech Support Telephone: +81-466-28-5092 Main Fax: +81-3-5695-8403 Office, Main Number: +81-3-5695-8401 web site: www.diamondmm.co.jp France Diamond Multimedia Systems, Inc. 6 Boulevard General LeClerc - 15th Floor 92110 Clichy France Tech Support Telephone: +44-1189-44 44 33 Tech Support Fax: +44-1189-44 44 45 Mailbox: +44-1189-44 4415 (Modem, up to 33.6 Kbps) Mailbox: +44-1189-44 1312 (Modem, k56flex / 56 Kbps) Office, Main Number: +33-1-47 56 11 57 Office, Main Fax: +33-1-47 56 11 39 web site: www.diamondmm.de Singapore 51 Goldhill Plaza #16-06 Podium Block, Singapore 308900 Tel: +65-3539511 Fax: +65-3539510 Korea 27th Floor, Korea World Trade Center 159 Samsung-Dong Kangnam-Ku Seoul, Korea 135-729 Telephone: +82-2-551-2743/2747 Fax: +82-2-551-2744/2720 Hong Kong Suite 1111 , Tower II , Silvercord 30 Canton Road , T.S.T. Kowloon, Hong Kong Telephone: +852-23759023 Fax: +852-23759021 All product names listed are trademarks or copyrights of their respective owners. ======================================================================= Diamond Multimedia Systems, Inc. (c) 1993-98, All Rights Reserved =======================================================================