AM-8000 Service Manual Page 9
If the documentation was not included with your peripheral device, it is probably contained on the
AlphaCD which is distributed to all Alpha Micro Value Added Resellers periodically, and can be found on the Alpha Micro web site, www.alphamicro.com
in the Documentation section.
DISK DRIVE REPLACEMENT AND WARMBOOT RESTORE
There are a few situations that will require the system administrator to work with disk drives and disk media from the AM-8000 Tools. All these procedures must be done on the system console.
•
Formatting DVD-RAM media
•
Adding another hard disk.
•
Restoring the AM-8000 to a fresh or wiped hard disk (warm boot).
•
Restoring just one .AMD files from a Ghosted backup.
Before beginning any of these procedures, make sure you have a current AM-8000 “warm-bootable” CD or DVD.
The following instructions list the screen titles, important options, and the actions you should take using the following syntax:
screen or box title or top line
<selected item> action for you to do [keyboard key] keyboard input
(action notes and choices)
System Administrator Tools
Accessing the AM8000 Tools
To use the new AM8000 System tools:
Press /
TAB
until the AM8000 System screen appears.
This gives you access to various XP-Embedded tools (for formatting disks, etc.) and to Norton Ghost for creating "warm boot" and other DVD/CD backups. The system administrator should know how to use
Windows utilities and how to use Norton Ghost software.
Accessing the AM8000 Disk Maintenance screen
Many of these administrative tasks require access to the AM8000 Disk Maintenance screen (You may also use you mouse to point the Menu Item and click to select.):
Press /
TAB
to:
AM8000 System …..
<…. > Press to:
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<Control Panel> Press ENTER
Control Panel
<…. > Press to:
<Administrative Tools> Press ENTER
Administrative Tools
<…. > Press to:
<Computer Management> Press
ENTER
Computer Management
<…. > Press to:
<Storage> Press
<…. > Press to:
<Disk Management> Press TAB and again TAB
Though hard to see, the focus should now be in the lower right section of the screen which typically has the following fields: (Use the mouse to enlarge the box to see the items.)
<Disk 0 > <System Volume (partition)> <Data Volume (partition)>
<CD-ROM 0>
Use the mouse to select item or use the arrow keys and notice how the fields change. Use and keys to move between the various drives (usually Disk 0 and CD-ROM 0). The and will select various partitions on Disk 0, etc.
The key sequence ALT /A to open Action
Press K to open All Tasks will give you the same menu as right clicking the selected area of the screen.
You should see the physical drive or drives of the system with drive sizes and partition sizes. Once you add a new drive to the system which has not be formatted, it will be displayed in the lower panel with a
Black Bar.
From this point, the specific action will depend upon the specific task and will be covered in that section.
Formatting DVD-RAM Media
Access the AM8000 Disk Maintenance screen, as described above. Then:
Computer Management
<Storage> Press
<Disk Management> Press TAB and again TAB
Press
TAB
and/or [arrows] to:
<CD-ROM 0> Press to:
<E:--
Æ Press
ALT
/A to open Action
Press K to open All Tasks
Press F to open Format screen
Format x:
Put in the label you want; use the FAT32 file system;
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Press ENTER for <OK> to start the format.
Press
ENTER
again for <OK> to confirm the erase.
If the quick format is available and checked, this will take less than 2 minutes.
Now the DVD-RAM is ready to use from XP Embedded. Now you can copy .AMD files to the DVD-
RAM. This process is rather slow, and AMOS should be stopped while copying a large file to the DVD-
RAM. Copying a 4 GB .AMD file to the DVD-RAM takes about 2 hours.
Adding another hard disk
Adding another hard disk drive is similar to formatting a DVD-RAM, but with additional steps before the format:
•
Physically install the new hardware.
•
Configure the new drive by either:
1.
Manually (and slower) as detailed below; or
2.
Do a (fast) Ghost restore of a recent full backup to the new hard disk. See the “Restoring the AM-
8000 to a fresh or wiped hard disk (warm boot)”.
Details
1.
Physically install the new hardware.
If the new disk drive has a SCSI LVD interface: attach the drive to the SCSI LVD bus (usually the
SCSA (A) bus). If the new disk drive is a SCSI single ended interface, attach it to the second (B)
SCSI bus.
If the disk drive has an IDE interface, it can go on either the primary or secondary IDE bus. Be sure to set the disk drive jumpers correctly. If the drive is to be attached to the secondary IDE channel, you will need to provide the IDE cable.
Each of the 3.5" drive bays can be removed. When re-installing them, make very sure that each locking arm is securely forward.
There are snap-in peripheral mounting guides in the bottom of the chassis for 5.25" devices. See the
Peripherals section of this manual for additional details on peripheral mounting.
2.
Boot the system.
3.
Configure the new hard drive for NTFS, as follows:
Access the AM8000 Disk Maintenance screen, as described above, or use the mouse to Select:
Computer Management
<Storage> Press
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<Disk Management> Press TAB and again TAB
Press
TAB
and/or [arrows] to:
<Disk 0>
Then select with the mouse or use the keyboard to select the new drive (Disk 1 in this example):
<Disk 0> Press to:
<Disk 1> Press ALT /A (opens Action menu)
Press K (opens All Tasks)
Press N (if available, starts the New Partition Wizard)
Continued below
Otherwise:
Press F (opens the Format screen)
And do similar to the instructions below.
New Partition Wizard
<Next> Press
ENTER
Select Partition Type
<* Primary partition> Press
ENTER
(does Next)
(you can boot off of ANY primary you can have 4 primaries
Specify Partition Size
OR 3 primaries and 1 extended with 4 logicals.)
<Partition size in MB: xxxx> we normally make the first partition 4251
Just press
ENTER to keep maximum (does Next).
Assign Drive Letter or Path
<* Assign the following drive letter: ?> Press ENTER (does Next)
(This can be changed later, but may then require adjusting the AM8000 configuration.)
Format Partition
<* Format this partition with the following settings:> Press TAB
File system: <NTFS> Press
TAB
Allocation unit size: <default> TAB
Volume label: <whatever> Enter desired name
TAB
<* Perform a quick format> Press
SPACE
(to select), then
TAB
< Enable file and folder compression> leave UN-Checked
Press
ENTER
(does Next)
Completing ...
<Finish> Press
ENTER
When this process is complete, you are done unless you wish to format another partition. If so, jump back to the top of this subsection and repeat the process.
Now mark the desired boot partition (if any) as active:
<Disk 1> Press to the desired partition
Press
ALT
/A (opens Action menu)
Press K (opens All Tasks)
Press M (marks as Active)
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1.
Configure the new drive for AM8000 operation.
This can be done by either: a. copying the desired sub-directories to the new partition using Explorer; or b. creating the desired sub-directories using Explorer, then creating the desired AMOS .AMD pseudo drives using the AM8000 configuration process.
Restoring the AM-8000 to a fresh or wiped hard disk (warm boot).
The procedure to restore the system drive from the Bootable Ghost CD is a little more difficult.
This procedure can be done to any hard disk, including the original drive or a new, larger “sub” drive. Ghost can restore one or more partitions. Ghost can also partition and format hard disks.
All of these procedures may destroy previous data, so use caution when performing them.
Insert your bootable DVD into the DVD RAM drive.
Start up the system.
The system will go through the normal BIOS initalization and POST, including the SCSI bus scan. After that, it will display the following option:
Press any key to boot from CD or DVD-ROM Press SPACE
(If you do not get the above message, then you will need to re-start the system and press
F2
to enter the BIOS settings. Be patient, it takes a while to scan the SCSI buses first.
<Main> Press to:
<Boot>
On the left is a list that should start with the CD/DVD device. The instructions on the right side of the screen cover changing the order of the list.
When done, Press F10 , then ENTER . This will reboot the system.)
The next thing you will see is the Norton Ghost PC DOS sign-on screen. With the Ghost menus, anything that is highlighted in WHITE is selected. Generally, use the arrow ( ),
TAB
and
ENTER keys to navigate.
Norton Ghost 2003…..
About Norton Ghost
<OK> Press ENTER
<Local > Press
ENTER
<Disk > Press
ENTER
<To Disk > Press
<To Image > Press
<From Image > Press ENTER
or just (because the F is underlined):
<To Disk > Press F
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Image file name to restore from
<…..>Press /
TAB
<… A: Local drive > Press
ENTER
<… >
Press
(until the DVD-RAM drive is selected.)
<… ………… DVD drive > Press ENTER
Name ….
<Ghost CD/DVD Image > Press ENTER
Select local destination drive …..
Drive ……..
< 1 ….. > Press
ENTER
(1 is the normal booting drive.)
Destination Drive Details ….
….. New Size ……
..…. <17500> … Enter 4251 (or a different desired C: partition size)
Press
TAB
Adjust other partition sizes as desired.
<OK> Press
ENTER
Question: (1822)
<No> Press Y
Progress Indicator…. (This will take about 4 minutes for drive C:, appropriately longer if you
Clone Complete (1912) are also restoring other drives.)
…. <Reset Computer> Press
ENTER
The system will now go through the normal BIOS initalization and POST. After that, if you have not removed the DVD-R, it will again display the option:
Press any key to boot from CD or DVD-ROM Do nothing - let it time out!
The system should now continue to boot with the Alpha Micro logo, etc., into AMOS 8.0. It will boot into the last configuration saved on the booting DVD.
Getting to the production configuration
If you had changed any of the AM8000 configuration information since creating that booting DVD, such as adding Microsoft printers, COMxx ports, SCSI devices, firewall settings, etc., then you will need to repeat those changes.
In addition, the AM8000.INI, and other customized .INI files, and perhaps even the AM8000.MON, may not be current. Production versions are normally on the AMOS 8.0 .AMD disks on the "Data Volume".
AFTER restoring the latest backup (see below), these can be updated by simply MONTSTing from the latest backup copies - like MONTST AM8000 AM8000 - which will re-syncronize the "System Volume" copies.
If the "Data Volume" partition (usually D:) was restored, then restoring the system is done.
If this was the most recent backup of the AMOS data, then the whole procedure is done.
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