AWARD BIOS SETUP
EM586 / 36
the “Master” and the second device is “Slave”. Hard disk types from 1 to 45 are the
standard ones. To select or change the configuration, move the cursor to the desired
position and press <Page Up> or <Page Down> to change the option : (1) Press “Auto”
for IDE HDD auto detection, (2) Press “User” for user definable, and Press “None” for not
installed (e.g. SCSI). There are six categories of information that you must enter for a
HDD: “CYLS.” for (number of cylinders), “HEADS” for (number of heads), “PRECOMP”
for (write pre-compensation), “LANDZ” for (landing zone), “SECTOR” for (number of
sectors) and ”MODE“ for (Normal, LBA, LARGE and AUTO). The hard disk vendor‘ s or
system manufacturer’ s documentation should provide you with the drive specifications.
For an IDE hard drive, you can set “TYPE” to “ Auto” or use the “IDE HDD AUTO
DETECTION” utility in the main program screen to enter the drive specifications.
Here is a brief explanation of drive specifications:
l
Type : The BIOS contains a table of pre-defined drive types. Each defined drive
type has specified number of cylinders, number of heads, write compensation factor,
landing zone, and number of sectors. Drives whose specifications do not
accommodate any pre-defined type are classified as type USER.
l
Size : Disk drive capacity (approximate). Note that this size is usually slightly
greater than the size of a formatted disk given by a diskchecking program.
l
Cyls : Number of cylinders.
l
Head : Number of heads.
l
Precomp : Write precompensation cylinder
l
Landz : Landing zone.
l
Sector : Number of sectors.
l
Mode : Auto, Normal, Large, or LBA.
•
Auto: The BIOS automatically determines the optimal mode.
•
Normal: Maximum number of cylinders, heads, and sectors supported are 1024,
16, and 63.
•
Large: For drives that do not support LBA and have more than 1024 cylinders.
•
LBA (Logical Block Addressing): During drive accesses, the IDE controller
transforms that data address described by sector, head, and cylinder number
into a physical block address, significantly improving data transfer rates. For
drives with greater 1024 cylinders.
The AWARD BIOS supports three HDD modes: NORMAL, LBA and LARGE.
