Disk Drives - Aptiva (SL-A) 2139/53/58/63

Disk Drives

If you install a new diskette, hard disk, or CD/DVD-ROM drive, BIOS autodetects the presence of these devices. Enter Setup to identify or verify the type of drive installed in the computer.

If you want to change any drive setting, select Disk Drives from the main menu. The Disk Drives menu appears showing the diskette drive and IDE drive parameters.

Diskette Drive (A or B)

These options display the size and storage capacity of the currently installed diskette drive. Empty drive bays are indicated with a 'None' setting.

LS-120 Drive As (Aptiva 2158 - 2163 only)

This option allows user to set for the LS-120 drive. Empty drive bays are indicated with a 'Normal' setting. Its possible settings are:

Normal The LS-120 drive is configured by Windows 98 and acts as an ATAPI removal media.
Drive A System recognizes the LS-120 drive as drive number 0 (drive A).
If a standard diskette drive A exists, system automatically identifies it as drive B.
Drive B System recognizes the LS-120 drive as drive B.

-ATTENTION- If 'Boot Sequence' in 'Startup Options' is set to CD-ROM and a bootable CD is loaded, BIOS identifies LS-120 (original set as drive A) as drive B and the standard diskette drive becomes inaccessible.

IDE Hard Disk and CD/DVD-ROM Drives

The Disk Drives menu includes four IDE drive items that allow you to configure the hard disk drives and the CD/DVD-ROM drive. Selecting any one of these items displays a submenu with details on a particular IDE drive.

The IDE drive items are identified as follows:

IDE Primary Channel Master is attached to IDE connector 1 on the system board and is set as the master device. This is the hard disk that comes preinstalled with the computer.
IDE Primary Channel Slave (if installed) is attached to IDE connector 1 on the system board and is set as the slave device.
IDE Secondary Channel Master (if installed) is attached to IDE connector 2 on the system board and is set as the master device.
IDE Secondary Channel Slave (if installed) is attached to IDE connector 2 on the system board and is set as the slave device. Normally, a preinstalled CD/DVD-ROM drive is connected here.

NOTE: The CD/DVD-ROM drive information does not appear among these options.
Click on the System Information option in the Setup main menu to verify the presence of a CD/DVD-ROM drive.

Proceed to the following for details on the parameters under each IDE drive submenu.

Type This item specifies the number of cylinders, heads, and sectors, and the size of a particular IDE drive. If no information appears opposite the parameters, there is no drive installed in that channel.

Hard Disk Block Mode This function enhances disk performance depending on the hard disk in use. BIOS automatically detects if the hard disk supports this feature.

Setting to Auto allows data transfer in blocks (multiple sectors) to increase the data transfer rate. If the system does not boot after setting this parameter to Auto, change the setting to Disabled. The default setting for this parameter is Auto.

Advanced PIO Mode The advanced PIO mode feature improves system performance by allowing the use of faster hard disk drives. If the hard disk supports this feature, you may set this parameter to Auto (default), Mode 0, Mode 1, Mode 2, Mode 3, or Mode 4 depending on the hard disk requirements. See the documentation that came with the hard disk.

If the hard disk does not support this function, set this parameter to Disabled.

Hard Disk Size > 528MB This enhanced IDE feature works only under DOS and Windows environments. If set to Auto, which is the default, BIOS allows you to use a hard disk with a capacity of more than 528 MB. This is made possible through the Logical Block Address (LBA) mode translation. You may be required to set this parameter to Disabled if you use other operating systems.

To prevent data loss, set this parameter to Auto if you are using a hard disk with more than 528 MB capacity that was previously configured through the LBA mode.
If you use a hard disk configured through the user-specific cylinder-head-sector (CHS) mode, set this parameter to Disabled.

Hard Disk 32-bit Access Setting this parameter to Enabled improves system performance by allowing the use of the 32-bit hard disk access.
This enhanced IDE feature only works under Windows 3.x, OS/2, Windows 95, Windows 98, and Novell NetWare. If the software does not support this function, set this parameter to Disabled.
The default setting is Enabled.

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