Chapter 4: BIOS
Entering Drive Parameters
You can also enter the hard disk drive parameters. The drive parameters are:
Parameter | Description |
|
|
Type | The number for a drive with certain identification parameters. |
Cylinders | The number of cylinders in the disk drive. |
Heads | The number of heads. |
Write | The size of a sector gets progressively smaller as the track |
Precompensation | diameter diminishes. Yet each sector must still hold 512 bytes. |
| Write precompensation circuitry on the hard disk compensates |
| for the physical difference in sector size by boosting the write |
| current for sectors on inner tracks. This parameter is the track |
| number where write precompensation begins. |
Sectors | The number of sectors per track. MFM drives have 17 sectors |
| per track. RLL drives have 26 sectors per track. ESDI drives |
| have 34 sectors per track. SCSI and IDE drive may have even |
| more sectors per track. |
Capacity | The formatted capacity of the drive is (Number of heads) x |
| (Number of cylinders) x (Number of sectors per track) x (512 |
| bytes per sector) |
|
|
Boot Sector Virus Protection
This setting allows you to prevent any data from being written the boot sector of the hard drive. While this may prevent viruses from infecting your system, you may need to change information here when installing new programs. The options for this setting are Enabled or Disabled.
Advanced CMOS Setup
Quick Boot
The Settings are Disabled or Enabled. Set to Enabled to permit AMIBIOS to boot quickly when the computer is powered on. This option replaces the old Above 1 MB Memory Test Advanced Setup option. The settings are:
Setting Description
Disabled AMIBIOS tests all system memory. AMIBIOS waits up to 40 seconds for a READY signal from the IDE hard disk drive. AMIBIOS waits for .5 seconds after sending a RESET signal to the IDE drive to allow the IDE drive time to get ready again.
BIOS
