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Translation Mode
Modern hard-disks have more cylinders than maximum number of cylinders permitted by DOS,
so, theoretically, a DOS machine couldn’t use a modern big-sized hard disk. This problem is
solved using a special addressing mechanism. This “mechanism” is called translation. The most
common translation methods are LBA (Logical Block Addressing) and ECHS (Enhanced
Cylinders - Heads - Sectors).
Option Description Note
LBA (*) LBA translation Default setting for both
ATAPI Units (Master1 &
Slave1)
(*) = Default setting
ECHS Extended CHS translation
Cylinders
Number of hard-disk cylinders (normally written on the disk label). If the autodetection is used
(suggested method!), the cylinders value is ignored by the BIOS.
Option Description Note
0..65536 Number of cylinders 0 is the default setting for
both ATAPI Units (Master1
& Slave1)
Heads
Number of hard-disk heads (normally written on the disk label). If the autodetection is used
(suggested method!), the heads value is ignored by the BIOS.
Option Description Note
0..64 Number of heads 0 is the default setting for
both ATAPI Units (Master1
& Slave1)
Sect/Tr
Number of sectors per track (normally written on the disk label). If the autodetection is used, the
sectors value is ignored by the BIOS.
Option Description Note
0..255 Number of sectors per track 0 is the default setting for
both ATAPI Units (Master1
& Slave1)
Size (MB)
This is the hard-disk size, in Mbytes, calculated by the BIOS, using either the autodetect method
or the user hand-written values (for cylinders, heads and sectors).
• Note: the size cannot be changed directly by the user.