Introducing the BIOS
User’s Manual
4-9
Cylinders:
When disks are placed directly above one another along the shaft, the circular vertical “
slice
” consisting
of all the tracks located in a particular position is called a cylinder. You can set the number of cylinders
for a HDD. The minimum number you can enter is 0, the maximum number you can enter is 65535.
Heads:
This is the tiny electromagnetic coil and metal pole used to create and read back the magnetic patterns on
the disk (also called the read/write head). You can configure the number of read/write heads. The
minimum number you can enter is 0, the maximum number you can enter is 255.
Write Precompensation:
The minimum number you can enter is 0, the maximum number you can enter is 65535.
Sectors:
The minimum segment of track length that can be assigned to stored data. Sectors usually are grouped
into blocks or logical blocks that function as the smallest units of data permit. You can configure this item
to sectors per track. The minimum number you can enter is 0, the maximum number you can enter is 255.
Maximum Capacity:
This item will show the maximum capacity of your storage device.
LBA (Logical Block Addressing) mode:
Two options are available: Off On. The default setting is
Off
. You can select
Auto
for a hard disk >
512 MB under DOS and Windows environment. Select
Off
under Netware and UNIX environment.
The earlier LBA mode can support HDD capacities of up to 8.4GB, and this mode uses a different
method to calculate the position of disk data to be accessed. It translates Cylinders (CYLS), Heads and
Sectors into a logical address where data is located. The Cylinders, Heads, and Sectors displayed in this
menu do not reflect the actual structure of the hard disk, they are just reference values used to calculate
actual positions. Currently, all high capacity hard disks support this mode, that’s why we recommend you
use this mode. Currently, the BIOS can support the INT 13h extension function, enabling the LBA mode
to support hard disk drive capacities exceeding 128 GB.
Block Mode:
Two options are available: Auto Off. The default setting is
Off
. Block mode is also called block
transfer, multiple commands, or multiple sector read/write. If your IDE hard drive supports block mode
(most new drives do), select
Auto
for automatic detection of the optimal number of block read/writes per
sector the drive can support.
Fast Programmed I/O Modes:
Seven options are available: Auto 0 1 2 3 4 5. The default setting is
Auto
. The BIOS
can auto-detect the transfer mode of the IDE devices in order to set its data transfer rate. You can select
the PIO mode from Mode 0 to Mode 4 of the IDE devices in order to set its data transfer rate.
Summary of Contents for SR7-8X
Page 2: ......
Page 82: ...Chapter 4 SR7 8X 4 34 ...
Page 92: ...Appendix C SR7 8X C 4 ...
Page 102: ...Appendix F SR7 8X F 6 ...
Page 114: ...Appendix I SR7 8X I 4 ...
