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Entering Drive Parameters
You can also enter the hard disk drive parameters yourself. The drive
parameters are as follows:
BIOS
Type
How to Configure
SCSI
Select
Type
. Select
Not Installed
on the drive parameter screen. The
SCSI drivers provided by the SCSI manufacturer should allow you to
configure the SCSI drive.
IDE
Select
Type
. Select
Auto
to let AMIBIOS determine the parameters.
Click on
OK
when AMIBIOS displays the drive parameters. Select
LBA Mode
. Select
On
if the drive has a capacity greater than
540MB.
Select
Block Mode
. Select
On
to allow block mode data transfers.
Select
32-Bit Mode
. Select
On
to allow 32-bit data transfers. Select
the
PIO Mode
. It is best to select
Auto
to allow AMIBIOS to
determine the PIO mode. If you select a PIO mode that is not
supported by the IDE drive, the drive will not work properly. If you
are absolutely certain that you know the drive's PIO mode, select PIO
mode 0-4, as appropriate.
CD-ROM
Select
Type
. Select
CDROM
. Click on
OK
when AMIBIOS displays
the drive parameters.
Standard MFM
Select Type. You must know the drive parameters. Select the drive
type that exactly matches your drive's parameters.
Non-Standard MFM
Select Type. If the drive parameters do not match the drive
parameters listed for drive types 1-46, select User and enter the
correct hard disk drive parameters.
Parameter
Description
Type
The number for a drive with certain identification parameters.
Cylinders
The number of cylinders in the disk drive.
Heads
The number of heads.
Write Precompensation
The actual physical size of a sector gets progressively smaller as the
track diameter diminishes. Yet each sector must still hold 512 bytes.
Write precompensation circuitry on the hard disk compensates for the
physical difference in sector size by boosting the write current for
sectors on inner tracks. This parameter is the track number on the
disk surface where write precompensation begins.
Landing Zone
This number is the cylinder location where the heads normally park
when the system is shut down.
Sectors
The number of sectors per track. MFM drives have 17 sectors per
track. RLL drives have 26 sectors per track. ESDI drives have 34
sectors per track. SCSI and IDE drives have even more sectors per
track.
Capacity
The formatted capacity of the drive is the number of heads times the
number of cylinders times the number of sectors per track times 512
(bytes per sector).
