SIGuardian version 1.0 (c) 2000 Palick Soft
 Welcome to the SIGuardian 1.0 !
 
 Table of Contents:
 1. WHAT IS SIGUARDIAN?
 2. SHAREWARE VERSION LIMITATIONS
 3. KNOWN BUGS AND LIMITATIONS.
 4. S.M.A.R.T. AND T.E.C. MEANING.
 4. SUPPORT AND BUG REPORTING
 
                               
 1. What is SIGuardian?
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 SIGuardian - is a disk utility, which helps you to check
status of your hard drives and prevent data loss.  SIGuardian
uses S.M.A.R.T.  technology, included in all modern hard disks
and in ATA standards.
 S.M.A.R.T. is an industry standard for monitoring and
reporting fault conditions in a peripheral storage device,
whether from damage or normal wear-and-tear.
 But keep in mind, what S.M.A.R.T. is only advisory service
and never should be used as replacement of backup.
 
                               
 2. Shareware version Limitations
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 This program distributed as ShareWare. These means what you
can install it, use it, but after 30 days of usage you must
register (buy) program or delete it from your computer.
 SIGuardian is distributed as trial (evaluation) fully
functional version. But after 30 days of usage SIGuardian stops
working and reports you about registration.
                               

 3. Known bugs and limitations.
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 *  With some motherboards with VIA chipset in Windows 95/98
  SIGuardian reports what smartvsd.vxd was not found, but this
  file does exists. This problem exists if you are using Ultra
  DMA driver provided by VIA. We dont have any solution for this
  problem except removing this driver. All rival S.M.A.R.T.
  analyzing programs dont work on this configuration either. For
  you information  Windows 98 on such motherboards normally
  detects and works with Ultra DMA, so you dont need VIA Ultra
  DMA driver at all (as far as we know).

 *  SIGuardian under Windows 95/98 can detect hard drives
connected only to main IDE controller  because of limitations
of Microsoft smartvsd.vxd driver. Under Windows NT/2000 it
now detects only first 4 devices. This will be corrected in new
minor update versions.
                               
 4. S.M.A.R.T. and T.E.C. meaning.
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 You must know, that S.M.A.R.T. technology is only advisory
service, so it can make mistakes. <g>
 T.E.C. - Threshold Exceed Condition - the day, then probably,
attribute value,  T.E.C. that you see, will be in threshold
condition. Probably, this may be the last day of life of your
hard disk.
 For make any decisions about nearest T.E.C., SIGuardian needs
change of any S.M.A.R.T. attribute of your hard disk. But,
because such changes occur rarely, it may be needed to wait
some time - day, week or month. After the first change of
attribute, SIGuardian may show a very near T.E.C. date  it's
because a little time passed after attribute change.

 Conclusion - the more time you use SIGuardian  the more
accurate T.E.C. prognosis it will make.
 But, we repeat, S.M.A.R.T. and T.E.C. are only advisory
services.
                               
 4. Support and bug reporting
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 Send any bug reports directly to support@palicksoft.f2s.com.
 Find new versions on http://palicksoft.hypermart.net,
 or you can subscribe to SIGuardian maillist:
http://palicksoft.hypermart.net/products/siguardian/index.htm
 
                      2000 by PalickSoft
                             team
