For EIDE hard-disk drives, the system provides an automatic drive-type detect feature. To use this feature for Primary Drive 0, highlight the Primary Drive 0 option and type a (for automatic); to use it for Primary Drive 1, highlight the Primary Drive 1 option and type a. In each case, the option setting changes to Auto. After the system reboots, the System Setup program automatically sets the correct drive-type number and options 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 think that your problem is related to drive type, try entering your drive-type information as described in the following subsections.
If You Know the Drive-Type Number
Use the drive-type number you found in the documentation 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.
To set the drive-type number in the System Setup program, highlight the appropriate drive option (Primary Drive 0 or Primary Drive 1) 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 Primary or Secondary Drive 0 and Drive 1 options display the following five parameters for each drive:
Drive Type is the drive-type number for the selected hard-disk drive.
Capacity (automatically calculated by the system) indicates the number of millions of bytes of storage provided by the drive. Cylinders is the number of logical cylinders.
Heads indicates the number of logical heads in the drive. Sectors is the number of logical sectors per track.
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 Primary or Secondary Drive 0 option and type u to display User 1. You can then use the right- or left-arrow key to switch between the User 1 and User 2 settings (only two user-defined drive types are allowed). Then press <Tab> to highlight each of the parameter fields in succession, and enter the appropriate number for each field.
NOTE: The User 1 and User 2 drive types can be used for both the Primary and Secondary Drive 0 and Drive 1 options. However, if you select the User 1 or User 2 drive type, you may not obtain optimum hard-disk drive performance. Also, the User 1 and User 2 drive types cannot be used for hard-disk drives greater than 528 megabytes (MB) in capacity.
Hard-Disk Drive Sequence
Hard-Disk Drive Sequence lists installed adapter cards and devices in the order they will be initialized. The first hard-disk drive in the list becomes the bootable drive C.
Boot Sequence
Boot Sequence enables you to set the order of the devices from which the system attempts to boot.
The term boot refers to the system's start-up procedure. When turned on, the system "bootstraps" itself into an operational state by loading into memory a small program, which in turn loads the necessary operating system. Boot Sequence tells the system where to look for the files that it needs to load.
