BIOS .IV CMOS) (Standard

IV. BIOS SOFTWARE

For IDE hard disk drive setup, you can:•Use the Auto setting for detection during bootup.

•Use the IDE HDD AUTO DETECTION in the main menu to automatically enter the drive specifications.

•Enter the specifications yourself manually by using the “User” option.

The entries for specifying the hard disk type include CYLS (number of cylinders), HEAD (number of read/write heads), PRECOMP (write precompensation), LANDZ (landing zone), SECTOR (number of sectors) and MODE. The SIZE field automatically adjusts according to the configuration you specify. The documentation that comes with your hard disk should provide you with the information regarding the drive specifications.

The MODE entry is for IDE hard disks only, and can be ignored for MFM and ESDI drives. This entry provides three options: Normal, Large, LBA, or Auto (see be- low). Set MODE to the Normal for IDE hard disk drives smaller than 528MB; set it to LBA for drives over 528MB that support Logical Block Addressing (LBA) to allow larger IDE hard disks; set it to Large for drives over 528MB that do not support LBA. Large type of drive can only be used with MS-DOS and is very uncom- mon. Most IDE drives over 528MB support the LBA mode.

Auto detection of hard disks on bootup

For each field: Primary Master, Primary Slave, Secondary Master, and Secondary Slave, you can select Auto under the TYPE and MODE fields. This will enable auto detection of your IDE drives during bootup. This will allow you to change your hard drives (with the power off) and then power on without having to reconfigure your hard drive type. If you use older hard drives which do not support this feature, then you must configure the hard drive in the standard method as described above by the "User" option.

NOTE: After the IDE hard disk drive information has been entered into BIOS, new IDE hard disk drives must be partitioned (such as with FDISK) and then formatted before data can be read from and write on. Primary IDE hard disk drives must have its partition set to active (also possible with FDISK).

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ASUS P/I-P55T2P4 User’s Manual