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Enhanced IDE Hard Disk Drive - Overcoming BIOS Limitations



Installation Guide - Overcoming BIOS Limitations

  Refer to the Enhanced IDE Hard Disk Drive User's Guide Supplement for important information on configuration jumper settings that might help the computer overcome BIOS limitations in order to recognize the full capacity of the drive.

The basic input and output system (BIOS) manages communication between the processor and the input-output devices. The computer BIOS might contain limitations that can keep the computer from recognizing the full capacity of the drive or from recognizing the large drive at all.
To solve BIOS limitations in IBM computers, install Disk Manager  using instructions given in Partitioning and Formatting Using Disk Manager

The following procedures contain steps to solve most known BIOS limitations in non-IBM computers.
  1.  Access the configuration-setup information.
  2.  Select the drive number for the new drive that you are installing.

     Based on BIOS type, number of IDE controllers, and number  of IDE devices in the computer, the configuration-setup  program displays options for up to four devices.  Normally, drives 1 and 2 are connected to the primary IDE  port and drives 3 and 4 are connected to the secondary IDE  port.

     If you have two IDE ports, drives 1 and 3 are the master  devices and drives 2 and 4 are the slave devices.
     If you have one IDE controller, drive 1 is the master device  and drive 2 is the slave device.

  3.  Based on the configuration, one of the following options will be available.
     The choices listed in order of preference are:

    1.  Select the Auto Detect configuration-setup option, if available.
       If the configuration-setup information displays the correct capacity, go to Partitioning and Formatting the Drive
       If the configuration-setup information does not display  the correct capacity, install Disk Manager  using  instructions given in Partitioning and Formatting Using Disk Manager.
    2.  Select the User Definable drive type. The User Definable type for the BIOS configuration will be a number between  47 and 49. Enter 1024 for cylinders, 16 for heads, and 63 for sectors. Set the Landing Zone and Write Precomp  entries to zero. When the partitioning process completes, the configuration-setup information displays 504 MB, but you  can use the full capacity of the drive. Save the changes and exit from the configuration-setup program. Then install Disk Manager  using instructions given in Partitioning and Formatting Using Disk Manager.
    3.  Select Drive Type 1. The value displayed for the type 1 drive is 1MB. When the partitioning process completes, the  configuration-setup information still displays 10 MB, but you can use the full capacity of the drive. Save the changes  and exit from the configuration-setup program. Then install Disk Manager  using instructions given in Partitioning and Formatting Using Disk Manager.

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