Category : Alternate Operating Systems - Quarterdeck DesqView, CP/M, etc
Archive   : QWAUG92.ZIP
Filename : SSTOR.TEC
Quarterdeck Technical Note #249
by Robert Gaustad
June 29, 1992
THE OPTIMIZE/SUPERSTOR TROUBLESHOOTING GUIDE
This troubleshooting guide is designed to help the individual who has QEMM-386
(or QEMM-50/60 or QRAM) and SUPERSTOR 2.04 installed on his or her machine,
and has run, or wants to run, OPTIMIZE. If you have not yet run OPTIMIZE,
please read the General Information section below, then proceed to either
Section 1 or Section 2, depending on if you installed QEMM-386 BEFORE or AFTER
installing SuperStor.
Throughout this document we will refer to QEMM-386. With the exception of
QEMM-386's Stealth feature, the same solutions presented for QEMM-386 will
also apply to users of QEMM-50/60 or QRAM. The OPTIMIZE program is the same
for all three products. Note that the STEALTH option exists only with QEMM-
386.
To avoid confusion, we will refer to COMPRESSED and UNCOMPRESSED drives
whenever possible. The COMPRESSED drive will always be the one that SUPERSTOR
creates to hold most of your programs and data. The UNCOMPRESSED drive will
be the smaller BOOT drive.
The troubleshooting guide below is in four sections. At the end of each
section, you will be directed to the proper step in the "OPTIMIZING WITH
QEMM386 AND SUPERSTOR" section below. The sections are as follows:
1. QEMM-386 and SuperStor - General Information (Page 2)
2. SuperStor Installed First (Page 4)
3. QEMM-386 Installed First (Page 5)
4. Optimizing with QEMM-386 and SuperStor (Page 7)
*********************************
***** IMPORTANT *****
BEFORE CONTINUING WITH THE FOLLOWING TROUBLESHOOTING
GUIDE READ THE GENERAL INFORMATION SECTION BELOW
*********************************
SECTION ONE
QEMM-386 AND SUPERSTOR - GENERAL INFORMATION
I. Your UNCOMPRESSED drive is always drive C: during bootup, BEFORE the
SuperStor driver is executed. If you have installed SuperStor to compress
your whole hard disk drive, you will have a difficult time accessing the boot,
or UNCOMPRESSED, portion of the drive, after SuperStor has been executed. Once
SuperStor is executed and creates the COMPRESSED partition, it hides the
UNCOMPRESSED partition and makes it seem as if drive C: (the COMPRESSED
SuperStor partition after boot) is the boot drive. The only way to access the
hidden UNCOMPRESSED partition is to use the SuperStor program diskette to
execute the program ADD2SWP.EXE. This will be detailed in "Optimizing with
QEMM-386 and SuperStor" below.
II. If you have configured SuperStor to reserve space on the uncompressed
drive to be accessed by a different drive ID, you will be able to access the
uncompressed partition easily. You are given the option to reserve this space
when you are running the SSTOR program to create your COMPRESSED drive(s). The
default is NO and if you press ENTER when encountering this option, SSTOR will
set-up SuperStor to compress your complete drive. If you have not yet
installed SuperStor, Quarterdeck recommends that you select YES to override
the default. When the program then asks you for a size to make the
UNCOMPRESSED drive, enter 2048 to add two megabytes to that drive size.
III. The way to determine which drive is which (COMPRESSED or UNCOMPRESSED)
is to start the SSTOR.EXE program in the C:\ADDSTOR directory. Under the
heading "System Device List" will be information pertaining to all drives on
your computer.
IV. If before you installed SuperStor your hard disk drive had more than one
partition, i.e., a C: and D: partition, then DEVSWAP.COM swaps drive names
differently. If you had a C: and D: partition, and you COMPRESSED the C:
drive only, then your drives will be set up as follows when SuperStor is
installed:
C: becomes E:
D: is still D: unless you compress that as well. If you do compress
D:, it becomes F:
If you had 3 partitions, i.e., C:, D: and E:, and you compress them all, then
they will be as follows:
C: becomes F:, D: becomes G:, E: becomes H:
The troubleshooting guide below is based on a one partition drive. If your
drive has multiple partitions, then you must determine what drive C: swaps to
and use the appropriate drive name.
V. If you are using a disk caching program with SuperStor, be very careful to
determine whether it is compatible with SuperStor or not. For instance,
Microsoft Windows' 3.1 SMARTDRV.EXE will lock up your system if the
SSTORDRV.SYS driver is loaded into HIGH Ram with QEMM-386. Also, Norton
NCACHE will not work, under any circumstances, with SuperStor installed on
your machine.
**************************
BE ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN THAT YOU READ THE README.TXT FILE IN YOUR ADDSTOR
DIRECTORY FOR ANY POTENTIAL CONFLICTS WITH OTHER PROGRAMS AND DRIVERS.
**************************
VI. You should always have a bootable floppy diskette available which will
execute SuperStor and give you access to your COMPRESSED drive. To create
this, format a floppy disk with the command:
C:\FORMAT A:/S
When this disk has been formatted, copy the CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT files
from the hard disk drive to the floppy diskette. Once those files have been
copied over, check the contents of them. The CONFIG.SYS file should contain
at least the following lines:
FILES=40
DEVICE=\SSTORDRV.SYS /NOHIGH
DEVICE=\DEVSWAP.EXE
SuperStor does not automatically place the "/NOHIGH" parameter at the end of
the SSTORDRV.SYS device line. If you want QEMM-386's OPTIMIZE program to load
this driver high, you must place this parameter at the end of this line.
The AUTOEXEC.BAT file should contain at least the following lines:
PATH=C:\;C:\DOS;C:\QEMM;C:\ADDSTOR
PROMPT=$P$G
These two files on the boot floppy will allow you to access your SuperStor
COMPRESSED drive and navigate around the computer.
*****************************************************
*******************************************
************************
SECTION TWO
SUPERSTOR INSTALLED FIRST
If SuperStor is already installed on your hard drive and you now install QEMM-
386 and run OPTIMIZE, than you must follow the section below.
I. If you install QEMM-386 and run QEMM-386's OPTIMIZE program on a system
with SuperStor already installed, SuperStor will fail to execute during the
first reboot of the OPTIMIZE program. The reason this happens is that QEMM-
386 has been installed on the COMPRESSED drive and NOT the BOOT (or
UNCOMPRESSED) drive. Before OPTIMIZE executes the first reboot, it places
LOADHI.SYS /GS statements in front of every device driver in the CONFIG.SYS
file in order for it to determine the amount of room the file takes to LOADHI
into a High RAM area.
II. The CONFIG.SYS file is executed from the BOOT (or UNCOMPRESSED) drive and
since QEMM-386 and its companion files are installed only on the COMPRESSED
drive, QEMM-386 and LOADHI.SYS /GS fail to initialize during boot-up. Because
of these failures, SuperStor also fails to start-up, leaving you with only the
small UNCOMPRESSED BOOT drive available.
III. It is an easy process to correct this situation. All you have to do is
create a new, temporary, CONFIG.SYS file on the UNCOMPRESSED drive, now drive
C:, and then reboot. To do this, first rename the old CONFIG.SYS file by
typing:
RENAME CONFIG.SYS CONFIG.XXX
Now, create a new CONFIG.SYS file by typing the following:
COPY CON CONFIG.SYS
The cursor will now be below the "C" in COPY. Now, type:
DEVICE=\SSTORDRV.SYS
DEVICE=\DEVSWAP.COM
NOTE: IF YOU HAVE ANY OTHER DRIVERS, SUCH AS A DISK PARTITIONER, THAT ARE
ESSENTIAL TO BOOT YOUR MACHINE, INCLUDE THOSE IN THE TEMPORARY CONFIG.SYS
FILE. IF YOU DO NEED TO BOOT WITH A DISK PARTITIONER, MAKE SURE IT LOADS
BEFORE SSTORDRV.SYS. DON'T WORRY ABOUT ANY OTHER DRIVERS YOU MAY HAVE HAD IN
THE ORIGINAL CONFIG.SYS FILE, ONCE YOU HAVE HAVE REBOOTED THE MACHINE, YOUR
ORIGINAL CONFIG.SYS FILE WILL BE INTACT.
Now, press the F6 key and
ONE FILE COPIED
IV. Reboot the machine.
Because of SuperStor program designs, the untouched CONFIG.SYS file on the
COMPRESSED drive will automatically overwrite the temporary CONFIG.SYS file on
the UNCOMPRESSED drive. The contents of both CONFIG.SYS files will then be
the same as before you installed QEMM-386 and ran OPTIMIZE.
*********************
FULL DISK COMPRESSION
*********************
IF YOU INSTALLED SUPERSTOR TO COMPRESS YOUR WHOLE HARD DRIVE, PROCEED TO
STEP 2 IN "OPTIMIZING WITH QEMM-386 AND SUPERSTOR."
************************
PARTIAL DISK COMPRESSION
************************
IF YOU INSTALLED SUPERSTOR TO COMPRESS ONLY A PORTION OF YOUR HARD
DISK DRIVE, PROCEED TO STEP 2 IN "OPTIMIZING WITH QEMM-386 AND SUPERSTOR."
ONCE YOU HAVE COMPLETED STEP 2, PROCEED TO EITHER STEP 4 OR 6, DEPENDING
UPON WHETHER OR NOT YOU HAVE LEFT ADEQUATE ROOM ON YOUR UNCOMPRESSED
PARTITION TO HOLD ALL QEMM-386 AND DOS FILES.
******************************
SECTION THREE
QEMM-386 INSTALLED FIRST
If QEMM-386 is currently installed on your hard disk drive and you now install
SuperStor, you then need to follow the instructions in the section below.
I. After you install SuperStor on a computer, you then have to run SSTOR.EXE
to do the actual compression of your hard drive. The default of SSTOR is to
compress all of the hard drive space. You may choose to compress only a
portion of your hard drive. If this is the case, read the following
information, but keep in mind, that in your case, you will have ready access
to the UNCOMPRESSED portion of your drive. At the end of this section, you
will be directed to the next pertinent section of this troubleshooting guide.
If you accept the default to compress the whole hard disk drive, SuperStor
does the following:
A. Creates a tiny boot partition which is hidden and not readily
accessible after boot-up. This partition contains COMMAND.COM,
CONFIG.SYS and necessary SuperStor files. If QEMM-386 is already
installed on the computer, SuperStor places the file QEMM386.SYS in
the root directory of the small boot partition.
B. Changes the QEMM-386 device line from:
DEVICE=C:\QEMM\QEMM386.SYS RAM
to
DEVICE=C:\QEMM386.SYS RAM
C. Adds two lines to the CONFIG.SYS file to invoke SuperStor and its
drive swapping program. Those lines read as follows:
DEVICE=\SSTORDRV.SYS
DEVICE=\DEVSWAP.COM
The first line loads the SuperStor disk compression program, creating a large
COMPRESSED drive partition. The second line swaps drive names so that the
BOOT or UNCOMPRESSED drive (C: at boot time) becomes D: and the COMPRESSED
drive becomes C:.
If you have accepted the default of compressing the whole drive, the drive
letter D: is not readily accessible. How to access the UNCOMPRESSED drive
will be explained, in detail, later in this troubleshooting guide. If you
have only compressed a portion of the hard disk drive you already have access
to the UNCOMPRESSED portion of the drive.
II. When SuperStor is installed on the computer it does NOT:
A. Create a QEMM directory on the UNCOMPRESSED partition and copy over
all pertinent QEMM-386 files.
B. Create a DOS directory on the UNCOMPRESSED partition and copy over
all pertinent DOS files.
C. Copy over the AUTOEXEC.BAT file from the COMPRESSED drive.
III. The net result of the above is that after installing SuperStor,
compressing the hard disk, and rebooting the machine, QEMM-386 will execute
but any lines in the CONFIG.SYS that precede SSTORDRV.SYS and that have
LOADHI.SYS statements will fail. This is because SuperStor did not create the
QEMM directory on the UNCOMPRESSED drive and copy all pertinent QEMM-386 files
to that directory. Once SSTORDRV.SYS has executed and DEVSWAP.COM has swapped
drive names, those lines following that do have LOADHI.SYS statements in them
will execute. However, if the user attempts to run QEMM-386's OPTIMIZE
program, the attempt will fail and a message will display on the screen
telling you that some files are missing with which to perform OPTIMIZE. After
following the instructions below in "Optimizing with QEMM-386 and SuperStor"
those files will then be in the correct directory for OPTIMIZE to perform.
*********************
FULL DISK COMPRESSION
*********************
IF YOU INSTALLED SUPERSTOR TO COMPRESS YOUR WHOLE HARD DISK DRIVE, PROCEED
TO STEP 1 IN "OPTIMIZING WITH QEMM-386 AND SUPERSTOR."
************************
PARTIAL DISK COMPRESSION
************************
IF YOU HAVE INSTALLED SUPERSTOR TO COMPRESS ONLY A PORTION OF YOUR
HARD DISK DRIVE, PROCEED TO STEP 1 IN "OPTIMIZING WITH QEMM-386 AND
SUPERSTOR."
ONCE YOU HAVE COMPLETED STEP 2, PROCEED TO EITHER STEP 4 OR 6, DEPENDING
UPON WHETHER OR NOT YOU HAVE LEFT ADEQUATE ROOM ON YOUR UNCOMPRESSED
PARTITION TO HOLD ALL QEMM AND DOS FILES.
******************************
SECTION FOUR
OPTIMIZING WITH QEMM-386 AND SUPERSTOR
BEFORE FOLLOWING THE STEPS BELOW, MAKE CERTAIN THAT YOU HAVE READ THE
INFORMATION ABOVE PERTAINING TO THE ORDER AND METHOD USED TO INSTALL QEMM-386
AND SUPERSTOR ON YOUR COMPUTER. ALSO, MAKE SURE ANY IMPORTANT FILES HAVE BEEN
BACKED UP. THIS INCLUDES BOTH THE CONFIG.SYS AND AUTOEXEC.BAT FILES, AND ANY
OTHER FILES YOU FEEL ARE IRREPLACEABLE.
IF YOU HAVE CONFIGURED SUPERSTOR TO COMPRESS YOUR WHOLE HARD DISK DRIVE,
FOLLOW THE STEPS BELOW FROM 1 TO 16. IF YOU INSTALLED QEMM-386 AFTER
INSTALLING SUPERSTOR, YOU MAY SKIP STEP 1.
IF YOU HAVE CONFIGURED SUPERSTOR TO COMPRESS ONLY A PORTION OF YOUR HARD DISK
DRIVE, BUT DID NOT LEAVE ENOUGH ROOM ON THE UNCOMPRESSED PORTION TO COPY ALL
QEMM-386 AND DOS FILES TO THAT PORTION, FOLLOW THE STEPS BELOW FROM 4 TO 16.
1. On the C: COMPRESSED drive, edit the QEMM-386 device line in the
CONFIG.SYS file to read:
DEVICE=C:\QEMM\QEMM386.SYS RAM.
Save the CONFIG.SYS file.
2. Place the SuperStor program diskette into drive A:. Log onto drive A:
and type:
ADD2SWP C:
The program will then report:
ADD2SWP has completed, your PC needs to be rebooted.
Press the [ENTER] key to reboot the PC
3. Remove the diskette and press ENTER. After the computer completes its
reboot, you will then have access to both your COMPRESSED and UNCOMPRESSED
drives.
4. Start SSUTIL.EXE by typing:
SSUTIL
at the C: prompt, and run SHRINK DISK from within that program. Select an
amount to shrink the COMPRESSED disk by. Quarterdeck recommends a minimum
of 1024 Kb with 2048 Kb preferred.
5. EXIT and REBOOT.
THE NEXT STEPS CAN BE FOLLOWED IF YOU HAVE CONFIGURED SUPERSTOR TO COMPRESS
ONLY A PORTION OF YOUR HARD DISK DRIVE, AND LEFT ENOUGH ROOM FOR ALL QEMM-386
AND DOS FILES, OR IF YOU HAVE JUST FOLLOWED THE FIRST FIVE OPTIMIZE STEPS
ABOVE.
6. Log onto drive D: the UNCOMPRESSED drive. Create QEMM and DOS
directories by typing the following:
MD QEMM
MD DOS
7. Copy all QEMM-386 files and all DOS files into their respective
directories on the UNCOMPRESSED drive by typing:
COPY C:\QEMM D:\QEMM
COPY C:\DOS D:\DOS
8. Still on the UNCOMPRESSED drive D:, create directories pertaining to all
other drivers loading from the CONFIG.SYS file. For example if you have a
line in the CONFIG.SYS file that reads:
DEVICE=C:\MOUSE\MOUSE.SYS
then create a MOUSE directory and copy, from the COMPRESSED drive,
MOUSE.SYS into that directory. Do the same for all other drivers loading
from the CONFIG.SYS.
9. Log back on to drive C:, the COMPRESSED drive. Edit the CONFIG.SYS file
in the following ways:
A. Move the two SuperStor device lines to the bottom of the CONFIG.SYS
file.
B. If you haven't already done so, place a blank space and the "/NOHIGH"
parameter at the end of the SSTORDRV.SYS device line.
C. Place a REM and a blank space in front of the line that reads:
DEVICE=\DEVSWAP.COM
so it now reads:
REM DEVICE=\DEVSWAP.COM
Save the CONFIG.SYS file, but do NOT reboot, yet.
Below is an example of a generic CONFIG.SYS file, with the QEMM-386
and SuperStor lines in the proper order and the REM in front of the
DEVSWAP.COM line.
DEVICE=C:\QEMM\QEMM386.SYS
DOS=HIGH
FILES=40
BUFFERS=20
DEVICE=C:\DOS\ANSI.SYS
DEVICE=C:\DOS\SETVER.EXE
DEVICE=\SSTORDRV.SYS /NOHIGH
REM DEVICE=\DEVSWAP.COM
IMPORTANT NOTE: YOU MUST PLACE THE "/NOHIGH" PARAMETER AT THE END OF THE
SSTORDRV.SYS DEVICE LINE TO ALLOW OPTIMIZE TO SUCCESSFULLY LOAD THE DRIVER
INTO HIGH RAM. THIS DRIVER TAKES ABOUT 68K TO LOAD INTO HIGH RAM AND ABOUT
51K TO REMAIN RESIDENT.
10. Still on the COMPRESSED C: drive, edit the AUTOEXEC.BAT file and reverse
all drive designations from C: to D: or D: to C:. For example if a line
reads:
C:\MOUSE\MOUSE
change it to read:
D:\MOUSE\MOUSE.
Make sure you also reverse the drive designations in your path statement,
i.e.,
PATH=C:\;C:\DOS;C:\QEMM;C:\ADDSTOR
becomes:
PATH=D:\;D:\DOS;D:\QEMM;D:\ADDSTOR
Also, if you are using the CALL command to call batch files from the
AUTOEXEC.BAT file, make sure that the drive designations in the called
batch file are also reversed. For instance, if you have a line in your
AUTOEXEC.BAT file that reads:
CALL C:\NETWORK\STARTNET.BAT
and logs you onto a network, make sure you reverse the drive designations
in both the above line and in the batch file STARTNET.BAT.
11. Save the AUTOEXEC.BAT file and copy to the D:\ drive by typing:
COPY C:\AUTOEXEC.BAT D:\
12. Reboot the computer.
13. Run OPTIMIZE, by typing:
OPTIMIZE
at the C: prompt.
14. After OPTIMIZE is complete, edit the CONFIG.SYS file on the UNCOMPRESSED
drive and remove the REM and blank space in front of the DEVSWAP.COM
device line. It's very important that you edit the CONFIG.SYS file on
the UNCOMPRESSED drive which will be C:. After editing, save the file
and copy it to the COMPRESSED D: drive by typing:
COPY C:\CONFIG.SYS D:\
15. Edit the AUTOEXEC.BAT file on the UNCOMPRESSED C: drive and once again
reverse the drive designations. Be very careful that you find ALL drive
designations. Some lines may have more than one drive designation in the
same command so watch out for that. Also, any line that has a QEMM-386
LOADHI statement only has to be changed after the LOADHI statement. For
example the line may read:
C:\QEMM\LOADHI D:\MOUSE\MOUSE
You only have to reverse the D: which follows the word LOADHI.
That line will now read:
C:\QEMM\LOADHI C:\MOUSE\MOUSE
After editing the AUTOEXEC.BAT file on the UNCOMPRESSED C: drive, save
and copy it to the COMPRESSED drive D:.
16. The OPTIMIZE process is now complete. Reboot the computer which will
once again swap your drive names, and your work is done.
************************************************************************
* Trademarks are property of their respective owners. *
*This technical note may be copied and distributed freely as long as it*
*is distributed in its entirety and it is not distributed for profit. *
* Copyright (C) 1992 by Quarterdeck Office Systems *
************************ E N D O F F I L E *************************
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