Hints for remote booting with Smart 16/4 PCMCIA Ringnodes

When remote booting on a computer with a Smart 16/4 PCMCIA Ringnode it is necessary to configure the boot image such that Card and Socket Services are loaded before the network driver. When booting from a NetWare Server this presents a problem in that running Card and Socket Services may reset the PCMCIA controller in the computer resulting in the remote boot network connection being lost before the 'real' network driver is loaded.

To avoid this problem we recommend that you load a ramdrive, copy the card and socket services and network software to the ramdrive and run it from there. An example configuration for the boot disk image on the server is given below.

Sample CONFIG.SYS:

 dos = high, umb
 device = himem.sys
 REM Reserve 8K block of memory for MADGECS.EXE at CC00
 device = emm386.exe noems x=cc00-cdff
 REM Install a 1024K ramdrive in extended memory
 devicehigh = ramdrive.sys 1024 /e

Sample AUTOEXEC.BAT:

 @echo off
 REM Copy card/socket services, network driver and batch file to ramdrive
 copy madgecs.exe   d:\
 copy smart.exe     d:\
 copy smart.cfg     d:\
 copy ipx.smt       d:\
 copy load.bat      d:\

 REM Load card/socket services and network driver from ramdrive
 d:
 call load
 REM Load NetWare shell from A:
 a:
 loadhigh netx
 login

Sample LOAD.BAT (to be run from ramdrive):

 REM Run Madge Card and Socket Services
 madgecs /emulate_socket_services
 REM Run Smart IPX network driver
 smart ipx