Pinnacle Micro - The Optical Storage Company

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FAQs FOR PINNACLE MICRO OPTICAL DRIVES USING WINDOWS NT

1. Why doesn't my system see my Pinnacle Micro optical drive? When my system boots my SCSI controller see the optical drive.

Your SCSI controller is not properly configured to support your optical drive as a hard drive. To correct this you need to get into the SCSI Select configuration utility by pressing Ctrl A when the controller is displayed on your monitor during the boot process. Next select the address that corresponds to your controller. At the Options menu select View/Configure Host Adapter Settings, and go to the Advanced Host Adapter Settings. There you sill find an entry to support removable disks under BIOS as fixed disks which by default is set to BOOT ONLY change this to ALL DISKS. Also the Host Adapter BIOS must be enabled. Save the changes to the controller configuration and reboot your system. Your optical drive will now be see by your operating system.

2.My system seems to hang at the Pinnacle Micro optical drive during the boot process,and doesn't assign a drive letter to the optical drive, why?

If you don't have a piece of media in the optical drive during the boot process this will cause the boot process to hang at the optical drive because the controller is trying to poll the drive and determine what type of device it isand without a piece of media in the drive it cannot do this. If you have a piece of media in the drive this will not happen.

3.How do I format my Pinnacle Micro Optical drive in NT4.0? When I go to MY COMPUTER and try to format the drive there nothing happens!

You cannot format your optical drive from MY COMPUTER, you must partition and format the drive from the DISK ADMINISTRATOR. You only need to create the partition one time, this information is saved by NT as drive configuration information. After creating the partition you will have to exit the DISK ADMINISTRATOR and re-enter it and then you can format the media. after this you will only have to format each side of the media to use it.

4.I can't eject the media from my optical drive unless I shut the system down, why?

You have probably formatted your media using the NTFS file system and have saved files to the media. If this is the case the only way that you will be able to eject the media from the drive using Windows NT4.0 is to go into the DISK ADMINISTRATOR and select the Tools pull down menu and eject the media via a software command. If you are using Windows NT3.51 there is no way to eject the media as long as the system is running. If you did eject the media it would become corrupted. If you use the FAT file system you will not encounter this problem.

5.I can't access the information saved on my Vertex/Apex optical drive using the Explorer! I get a drive not ready, or drive off line error message, I have media in the drive!

Check to see if your SCSI controller assigns a drive letter to your optical drive during the boot process, make sure you have media in the drive. If it does not but does display an error message stating drive timed out device not ready your drive is in need of repair.

6.The liquid crystal display on the front of my Vertex/Apex optical drive displays an Unknown Media message no matter what media I have in it, what is wrong?

This indicates that your drive is in need of repair.

7.Why can't I assign a drive letter to my optical drive in the DISK ADMINISTRATOR?

Windows NT will not allow you to assign a drive letter to removable media drives because during the boot process drive letters are reserved for removable media drives.

8.I'm trying to perform a backup of my system using the NT backup program and I keep getting an error, the program will not let me use my Pinnacle Micro optical drive.

The backup program in NT is designed to use a tape drive not your optical drive. If you go to our web page at www.pinnaclemicro.com and go to the software download area you will find a file called Disc Archive 95, this program will allow you to perform a backup to your optical drive.