Advanced RISC Computing (ARC) naming conventions are a standard for identifying the location of a file or a program on a device such as a hard disk or a floppy disk. You must understand the ARC pathname conventions to be able to create paths to use to start the computer from the Windows NT startup floppy disk.
On x86-based computers, you use ARC pathnames to describe the location of the boot partition for each instance of Windows NT installed on the computer. If you configure your boot partition as a mirror set, you need to include a path to the shadow boot partition in the Boot.ini file. Creating the path is described in "Creating Alternate Boot Selections for an x86-based Computer," presented later in this chapter.
On x86-based computers, the ARC path to the boot partition has one of the following forms:
On RISC-based computers, you use ARC pathnames in the NVRAM to describe the location of:
When you create a Windows NT startup floppy disk to use on a RISC-based computer, you need to modify the NVRAM to include the ARC path to the floppy disk. If you configure your boot partition as a mirror set, you also need to include an ARC path to the shadow boot partition in your NVRAM. Creating boot selections for both the Windows NT startup floppy disk and the shadow boot partition is described in the section titled "Creating Alternate Boot Selections for a RISC-based Computer," presented later in this chapter.
On a RISC-based computer, only the scsi() syntax is used for hard disks. The boot selection has the following parts:
This is an example of a boot selection for a RISC-based computer: