Dell OptiPlex GXi, Reference And Installation Manual

Page: 35 / 140

Using the System Setup Program 2-5
•
USER1
or
USER2
•
A specific drive-type number
NOTE: Operating systems that bypass the system BIOS
may not obtain optimum hard-disk drive performance.
EIDE Devices
For EIDE hard-disk drives, the system provides an auto-
matic drive-type detect feature. To use this feature for
DRIVE 0
, highlight the
DRIVE 0
category in the
PRIMARY
drive section and type
a
(for
automatic
). To use it for
DRIVE 1
, highlight the
DRIVE 1
category and type
a
. In
each case, the category setting changes to
AUTO
. After
you reboot the system, the System Setup program auto-
matically sets the correct drive-type number and
parameters for each drive.
Before installing a new EIDE hard-disk drive, also check
the documentation that came with the drive to verify that
all jumper settings on the drive are appropriate for your
configuration.
If You Have a Problem
If the system generates a drive error message the first
time you boot your system after installing an EIDE drive,
it may mean that your particular drive does not work with
the automatic drive-type detect feature. If you suspect
that your problem is related to drive type, try entering
your drive-type information in one of the following ways.
If You Know the Drive-Type Number
Use the drive-type number you found in the documenta-
tion that came with the drive or, if the drive was installed
by Dell when you purchased your system, access the
Manufacturing Test Report from the Dell Accessories
folder or program group.
To set the drive-type number in the System Setup pro-
gram, highlight the appropriate drive category (
DRIVE 0
or
DRIVE 1
in the
PRIMARY
drive section) and type the correct
drive-type number. If you prefer, you can press the right-
or left-arrow key to increase or decrease, respectively, the
drive-type number until the correct one is displayed.
If You Do Not Know the Drive-Type Number
The
DRIVE 0
and
DRIVE 1
categories display the following seven
parameters for each drive type:
•
TYPE
is the drive-type number for the selected hard-
disk drive.
•
CYLS
is the number of logical cylinders.
•
HDS
indicates the number of logical heads in the
drive.
•
PRE
( precompensation cylinder ) is the cylinder num-
ber at which the electrical current for the drive head
changes to compensate for differences in data den-
sity across the disk surface (this parameter has no
effect for EIDE drives).
•
LZ
is the cy linder number that is used as the
drive’s landing zone for the heads when the drive
is not in use.
•
SEC
is the number of logical sectors per track.
•
SIZE
(automatically calculated by the system) indi-
cates the number of millions of bytes of storage
provided by the drive.
If none of the supported drive types match the parameters
of your new drive, you can enter your own parameters.
To do so, highlight the
DRIVE 0
category and type
u
to
display
USER1
. You can then use the right- or left-arrow
key to switch between the
USER1
and
USER2
settings
(only two user-defined drive types are allowed). Then
press the <
TAB
> key to highlight each of the parameter
fields in succession, and enter the appropriate number for
each field.
NOTE: The
USER1
and
USER2
drive types can be used for
both the
DRIVE 0
and
DRIVE 1
categories in the
PRIMARY
and
SECONDARY
drive sections. However, if you select
the
USER1
or
USER2
drive type, you may not obtain opti-
mum hard-disk drive performance. Also, the
USER1
and
USER2
drive types cannot be used for hard-disk drives
greater than 528 megabytes (MB) in capacity.
Base Memory
BASE MEMORY
displays the amount of memory available
to MS-DOS programs that do not use extended or
expanded memory. This category has no user-selectable
options.