Drivers for Host Adapters and Storage Devices

All storage devices require drivers. The NetWare Peripheral Architecture (NWPA) divides device drivers into two kinds: a custom device module (CDM) that drives the device itself and a host adapter module (HAM) that drives the adapter has been attached to. The following are two types of drivers:

Loading HAMs and CDMs is much like loading other device drivers, but instead of loading one .dsk file for both the adapter and device, you load one .ham file for the adapter and one .cdm file for each type of device attached to that adapter.

When you want to connect a new hardware device to the host bus adapter, you need to load only the appropriate CDM for that hardware device (in addition to the HAMs and CDMs already loaded, and assuming a compatible adapter is installed).



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