Hi folks,
Since a topic of resets and explanation came up, I thought I'd
just give a brief overview of what the resets do on the Apex:
There are five resets possible on the Apex (in increasing
severity): Soft (Warm) Reset, Hard (Hardware) Reset, Clear
(Registry) Settings, Clean (ROM) Reset and Erase Data.
The Wnm Reset is equivalent to restarting a computer. To perform
this reset, just press the Reset button on the Apex.
When this reset is carried out, Apex will attempt to save
information that it is working on, shutdown KeySoft and restart
the unit. When the unit restarts, Bootloader comes up and loads
the KeySoft image from ROM, displaying "starting keysoft" while
it is performing its job.
The Hard Reset is equivalent to forcibly shutting down and
restarting your computer by holding down the power button (don't
try this on your computer). To perform this, press and hold the
Reset button for about five semonds until a beep is heard. This
disregards whatever the operating system is doing and forces
hardware restart to occur. If a memory intensive task such as
writing to Flash was occurring when the reset was done, Apex will
launch Scan Disk and attempt to scan the memory for errors.
The Clear Settings is useful to return KeySoft settings to
factory defaults. Not only it eraseskeysoft.ksd from Flash Disk,
but also reloads flash files from ROM (those which were most
likely missing from the ROM image). To perform this reset, hold
down DOTS 4-5-6 (JKL) and press the Reset button. Hold down the
keyboard keys until about three seconds after the beep sounds.
The Clean Reset not only performs equivalent activity for Clear
Settings, but it initializes RAM Disk (keysoft system disk) by
erasing system information stored there and removes any
extensions you've installed. (will not affect the licenses).
When this is done, additional files for proters will be reloaded
in addition to regular ROM image files. To perform this reset,
hold down DOTS 1-2-3 (FDS) while pressing the Reset button. This
reset should be done only when advised by HW (likely), since you
need to reinstall programs.
The ERASE Datai.e. Flash Disk Format is a hidden command under
Support Information Mode which will perform Clean Reset and
format at the same time. This reset should be carried out if
cleaning the Apex of unwanted data or personal information is a
must - will result in loss of data on both RAM Disk and Flash.
To perform this reset, go to Support Information Mode then press
BACKSPACE with DOTS 1-2-4-5-6(CTRL+Fn+E). When the warning
message appears, press Y to confirm; upon doing this, Apex will
shut down in order to format the Flash Disk, and when finished,
will perform Clean Reset.
There's another command, mostly used to restore files for Flash
Disk from ROM (mostly things which are missing). To do this, go
to Support Information Mode then press BACKSPACE with
R(CTRl+Fn+R).
As I always say in these kind of posts: use these at your own
risk! A universal caution with resets is that you need to do them
at appropriate times and when advised by the manual, other users
and by HW, especially anything more severe than Clear Settings
reset. I'd wish to talk about what really happens while Apex is
booting, but because of technical nature of it, I'd rather not
write about it for now (just that it goes through what any
computer would go through).
Hope this helps. My apologies (mostly at HW) if I'm giving out
info that I'm not supposed to...
Cheers,
Joseph
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