Maxtor 20186800/A, Installation Manual, Page: 30 / 35

Glossary 27
5
Glossary
ATA
Advanced Technology Attachment. ATA (also known as Integrated Drive Electronics, or IDE) is a popular
internal interface standard for computer peripherals
BIOS
Basic Input/Output System. A low-level program that controls a computer's basic functions.
Boot
To start or restart your computer; loading the operating system.
Boot Drive
The drive from which the operating system loads to start up your computer.
Cable Select (CSEL)
Used in place of setting master/slave jumpers to identify hard drives in a dual-drive configuration. On systems
that support cable select, both hard drives on a single ATA channel can be set to the cable select jumper setting,
and the system will automatically configure the hard drives as master and slave based on the physical position of
the hard drives on the cable. This eliminates the need for unique jumper configurations between the master and
slave hard drives.
Capacity
The amount of information, measured in bytes, that can be stored on a hard drive. Also known as Storage
Capacity.
CMOS Setup
Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor. A program accessible at startup in Windows-compatible PCs that
allows you to configure your motherboard and device settings.
EIDE
Enhanced Integrated Drive Electronics. Improves the ATA/IDE standard interface by overcoming device support
and capacity limitations, improving data transfer rates, and allowing connection of CD-ROM and other devices.
FDISK
A software utility used to partition a hard drive. This utility is included with DOS, Windows 95, 98, and ME
operating systems.
Format
Formatting erases all information on a hard drive and sets up the file system for storing and retrieving files. To use
a new hard drive with a Windows operating system, you need to perform a high-level format using MaxBlast
Plus II. On Macintosh systems, high-level formatting is often referred to as initialization. Low-level formatting
sets up the locations of sectors on the drive. Maxtor hard drives are low-level formatted at the factory and do not
need to be low-level formatted by the end user.