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- BackMaster Considerations with OS/2 WARP v3.0
-
- 1.) BMRecover Boot Floppy Creation Process Fails
-
- The BackMaster disaster recovery boot disk creation utility, BMRecover, does
- not work under WARP. The boot disk creation utility, IBM's BOOTOS2, has
- recently been modified to support OS/2 WARP v3.0. This file is available on
- MSR Developments BBS system [(409)560-5970] and also on CompuServe in the
- MSR Development file directory [GO MSRDEV / OS/2 BVEN SECTION #7].
-
- 2.) Error 69 : Unable to Allocate Memory and Other Memory Considerations
-
- Some people with 8 Megabyte systems have some memory problems with WARP.
- There may be some sections of memory which are marked as being used when they
- are actually free. When the BackMaster device driver requests memory, the
- driver is told that there is no memory available. Device drivers and caches
- take up RAM and you only have a limited amount of RAM to use on an 8
- megabyte system.
-
- There are several things that you can look at to optimize your memory usage
- under WARP. They are as follows :
-
- 1.) If you are using a standard ISA, EISA, or VESA system, the driver
- IBM2FLPY.ADD is unnecessary on your system and should be remarked out or
- deleted from the config.sys entirely. This driver should only be needed for
- Microchannel machines.
-
- 2.) If you have installed WARP from CD, then the device driver XDFLOPPY.FLT
- may be remarked out of the config.sys. This driver adds support for the
- 1.88 megabyte diskettes that IBM uses for the installation diskettes. The
- first two diskettes (the only two used for CD installation) are standard 1.44
- megabyte disks. Therefore, if you have installed from CD, the XDFLOPPY.FLT
- driver will not be of any benefit to you and may be remarked out or deleted.
-
- 3.) OS/2 WARP has increased the standard sizes of the HPFS cache. On an
- 8 megabyte system, you may see some problems trying to use a 1024K cache with
- your HPFS. The HPFS cache was set to 64K standard in OS/2 version 2.1 and
- 2.11, and reducing the size, or even eliminating, the HPFS cache under WARP
- may free up the necessary memory.
-
- 4.) OS/2 WARP has also increased the DISKCACHE statement from 512K to 1024K
- in some cases. You may want to consider lowering this cache to the standard
- 512K that was used in OS/2 2.1 and 2.11 or even lowering this to 64K.
-
- 5.) There are many more drivers available to load in OS/2 WARP than in
- previous versions of OS/2. Not all of these drivers may be necessary. For
- instance, during a full install of WARP, the Multimedia Presentation Manager
- drivers are installed. If you do not own any multimedia equipment (i.e. a
- Sound Blaster or CD-ROM), then these drivers are unnecessary and can be
- removed. OS/2 WARP also contains TCP/IP drivers which you may not need.
- OS/2 WARP also comes with FaxWorks. You may want to consider not loading
- this driver if you do not normally use your FaxWorks Software. You will have
- to consider for your own system what is and is not necessary. On some
- 8 megabyte systems, it may be impossible to load all of this
- and have the necessary physical RAM. If you feel you need to load MMPM,
- TCP/IP, have large diskcaches, you will run into problems under WARP with or
- without BackMaster and you may want to consider buying more memory.
-
- 6.) In some cases, increasing the default size of your SWAP file can
- improve system performance. By preallocating disk space for the swap file,
- you can improve virtual memory performance by assuring the virtual memory is
- available immediately when needed thus reducing the number of times the SWAP
- file must be extended and therefore reducing SWAP file fragmentation. To
- change your default SWAP size, you will want to modify the SWAPPATH statement
- in your config.sys. The SWAPPATH statement has two numbers directly after
- the statement. These numbers are, respectively, the default swapper file
- size, and the second number is the amount of room to leave free on the drive.
- Increasing the default size of the SWAP file to about 12-16 megabytes will
- make sure that the SWAP file is less fragmented. This will also insure that
- the system will have the resources it needs upon bootup and will not need to
- expand the SWAP file as often.
-