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PowerSeries Firmware

What is ARC and PowerSeries Firmware?

The ARC firmware is a type of Bootloader. It can manage several different versions of Windows-NT on your system at once. It is started by the PowerSeries firmware, and can be located on a floppy or a separate partition on a hard disk.

See Also:

A Grand tour of the ARC Bootloader

What is the Latest PowerSeries Firmware?

As of 12/15/97 the latest versions of the firmware are:

Machine Version
PowerSeries 440 1.26
PowerSeries 830 1.11
PowerSeries 850 1.11
PowerSeries 820 Thinkpad 1.0
PowerSeries 850 Thinkpad 1.0

You can download the latest PowerSeries firmware from the PC Company Products at the PC Company Download Site. Go tot he BBS area and search for "PowerPC."

How Can I Find Out What Version I Have?

  1. Boot your PowerSeries machine.
  2. After you see the Keyboard Icon at the bottom of the screen, push F4 to enter the Text Based Diagnostics.
  3. When prompted, insert your System Management Services Diskette.
  4. The Version of your PowerSeries Firmware is in the Upper Left hand corner.

How Do I Update PowerSeries Firmware?

First of all, you are going to need two things:

  1. A System Management Services Diskette that corresponds to the version of Dakota on your system.
  2. A System Management Services Diskette that corresponds to the version you want to upgrade to.

Step 1: Enter the System Management Services by pressing F4 during startup.

Step 2: Go to "Utilities" and select "Update System Firmware."

Step 3: When asked for the "Firmware Update Diskette" use the second System Management Services Diskette for the version you want to upgrade to.

After the Chime, my PPC asks for a System Management Services Diskette, even though I have a Hard disk ARC partition and/or a boot floppy! WHY?

When starting the system, the PowerSeries Firmware will look for a boot device, if you have no boot device on your system, the Firmware will prompt you for the diskette. There are two possible conditions where this might happen:

You have no boot device on your system. This could be fixed by inserting a ARC Boot Disk in the A: drive.

Dakota does not know which boot devices to use. This can be fixed by:

Step 1: Enter the System Management Services.

Step 2: Go to "Select Boot Devices " and change the boot device selections.