Using Adaptec RAID Configuration

■Initiate Wide Negotiation — Determines whether the SCSI channel attempts 16-bit data transfer instead of 8-bit data transfer. The effective data transfer rate is doubled when 16-bit data transfer is used. The default is yes.

■QAS — Determines whether QAS (Quick Arbitration and Selection) is used to eliminate overhead and speed up data transfers on the SCSI bus. The default is yes.

■Packetized — Determines whether SCSI packetization (encapsulation) is used to reduce overhead and speed data transfer. The packetized SCSI protocol provides a method for transferring command and status information at the maximum rate. The default is yes.

Using the Disk Utilities

The BIOS-based Disk Utilities enable you to low-level format or verify the disk media of your SCSI hard disks.

To access the disk utilities:

1When you turn on or reboot your system, press Ctrl+A to access the Adaptec RAID Configuration (ARC) utilities when prompted by the following message:

Press <Ctrl><A> for Adaptec RAID Configuration Utility

2If multiple controllers are installed, select the controller you want to configure and press Enter.

3From the ARC menu, select Disk Utilities.

4Select the desired channel and press Enter.

After the option is selected, a list of all SCSI IDs and the devices at each ID is displayed. After selecting a specific ID and device, a small menu appears, displaying the following options:

■Format Disk—Performs a low-level format on a hard disk drive. Each hard disk drive must be low-level formatted before you can use your operating system’s partitioning and file preparation utilities, such as MS-DOS Fdisk and Format.

Most SCSI disk devices are preformatted at the factory and do not need to be formatted again. The Format Disk option is compatible with the vast majority of SCSI disk drives.

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