Dell OptiPlex GX1p - Manual (Page 15)

For MS-DOS, use the fdisk and format commands to perform these procedures. The fdisk and format commands are described in the MS-DOS
reference documentation.
For OS/2, see the discussion on partitioning and logical formatting in the documentation that came with the operating system.
For Windows NT, see the discussion on partitioning and logical formatting in the documentation that came with the operating system.
For the UNIX ® operating system, refer to your UNIX documentation.
Installing SCSI Devices
To use SCSI devices in your Dell computer, you must have a SCSI host adapter card, which comes with its own SCSI cable. This cable can be
used to attach a variety of SCSI devices (hard-disk drives, tape drives, and so on). The SCSI host adapter configures the devices attached to it as
one subsystem, not as independent devices.
Although SCSI devices are installed essentially the same way as other devices, their configuration requirements are different.
SCSI Configuration Guidelines
For details on configuring your SCSI subsystem, refer to the documentation that came with your SCSI devices and/or your host adapter card. The
following subsections offer some general guidelines.
SCSI ID Numbers
Each device attached to a SCSI host adapter card, as well as the card itself, must have a unique SCSI ID number from 0 to 7. When SCSI devices
are shipped from Dell, the default SCSI ID numbers are assigned as follows:
l A SCSI host adapter card is configured as SCSI ID 7 (typically the default ID for a host adapter card).
l A SCSI tape drive or digital audio tape (DAT) drive is configured as SCSI ID 6 (typically the default ID number for a tape drive).
l
A SCSI CD-ROM drive is configured as SCSI ID 5.
l SCSI hard-disk drives are usually configured as SCSI ID 0. (The drive used to boot your system should always be configured as SCSI ID 0.)
SCSI Cable and SCSI Termination
The type of cabling you receive with your SCSI device depends on the type of device you are installing.
l
If you are installing internal SCSI devices (such as CD-ROM, hard-disk, or tape drives), your system has the internal SCSI cables shown in
Figure 13 . Narrow SCSI devices use a 50-pin cable; wide SCSI devices use a 68-pin SCSI cable. One end of each cable attaches to the
SCSI host adapter. The connectors on the other end of the cable attach to the internal SCSI devices.
l If you are installing an external SCSI device, your system has a shielded external cable that connects to the external SCSI connector on the
SCSI host adapter card. It has a separate power cable to connect the SCSI device to an AC power source.
Before installing SCSI devices in your computer, you may need to configure the termination on your SCSI device(s). Both types of internal SCSI
cables contain terminators on the device end of the cables, so the devices connected to these cables must have termination disabled (see Figure
13). External SCSI cables do not have terminators, so termination must be enabled on the SCSI device itself.
Figure 13. Internal SCSI Cables
If you are installing only internal SCSI devices, verify that termination is enabled on the SCSI host adapter and disabled for all other internal SCSI
NOTICE: If you format your hard-disk drive under the OS/2 High Performance File System (HPFS), you cannot reformat the drive for
MS-DOS without losing all HPFS data. See your OS/2 documentation for details.
NOTICE: If you format your hard-disk drive under the Windows NT File System (NTFS), you cannot reformat the drive for MS-DOS
without losing all NTFS data. See your Windows NT documentation for details.
NOTE: There is no requirement that SCSI ID numbers be assigned sequentially or that devices be attached to the cable in order by ID
number.
NOTICE: Do not connect devices to all three connectors (internal narrow connector, internal wide connector, and external
connector) on a single SCSI host adapter card. Such a configuration is a violation of the SCSI specification. You can safely connect
devices to any two of these three connectors on a single SCSI host adapter card.