Dell OptiPlex Gxi - Manual (Page 35)

Using the System Setup Program 2-5
To choose a setting for these categories, type characters
from the keyboard or use the left- or right-arrow key to
cycle through the choices. The options are:
• AUTO (use this setting for all EIDE devices from
Dell)
•
NONE
•
USER1 or USER2
• A specific drive-type number
NOTE: Operating systems that bypass the system BIOS
may not obtain optimum hard-disk drive performance.
EIDE Devices
For EIDE hard-disk drives, the system provides an auto-
matic drive-type detect feature. To use this feature for
DRIVE 0 , highlight the DRIVE 0 category in the PRIMARY
drive section and type a (for automatic). To use it for
DRIVE 1 , highlight the DRIVE 1 category and type a . In
each case, the category setting changes to AUTO . After
you reboot the system, the System Setup program auto-
matically sets the correct drive-type number and
parameters for each drive.
Before installing a new EIDE hard-disk drive, also check
the documentation that came with the drive to verify that
all jumper settings on the drive are appropriate for your
configuration.
If You Have a Problem
If the system generates a drive error message the first
time you boot your system after installing an EIDE drive,
it may mean that your particular drive does not work with
the automatic drive-type detect feature. If you suspect
that your problem is related to drive type, try entering
your drive-type information in one of the following ways.
If You Know the Drive-Type Number
Use the drive-type number you found in the documenta-
tion that came with the drive or, if the drive was installed
by Dell when you purchased your system, access the
Manufacturing Test Report from the Dell Accessories
folder or program group.
To set the drive-type number in the System Setup pro-
gram, highlight the appropriate drive category (
DRIVE 0 or
DRIVE 1 in the PRIMARY drive section) and type the cor-
rect drive-type number. If you prefer, you can press the
right- or left-arrow key to increase or decrease, respec-
tively, the drive-type number until the correct one is
displayed.
If You Do Not Know the Drive-Type Number
The DRIVE 0 and DRIVE 1 categories display the following
seven parameters for each drive:
•
TYPE is the drive-type number for the selected hard-
disk drive.
•
CYLS is the number of logical cylinders.
•
HDS indicates the number of logical heads in the
drive.
•
PRE (precompensation cylinder) is the cylinder num-
ber at which the electrical current for the drive head
changes to compensate for differences in data den-
sity across the disk surface (this parameter has no
effect for EIDE drives).
•
LZ is the cylinder number that is used as the
drive’s landing zone for the heads when the drive
is not in use.
•
SEC is the number of logical sectors per track.
•
SIZE (automatically calculated by the system) indi-
cates the number of millions of bytes of storage
provided by the drive.
If none of the supported drive types match the parameters
of your new drive, you can enter your own parameters.
To do so, highlight the
DRIVE 0 category and type u to
display USER1 . You can then use the right- or left-arrow
key to switch between the USER1 and USER2 settings
(only two user-defined drive types are allowed). Then
press the <
TAB > key to highlight each of the parameter
fields in succession, and enter the appropriate number for
each field.
NOTE: The USER1 and USER2 drive types can be used for
both the DRIVE 0 and DRIVE 1 categories in the PRIMARY
and SECONDARY drive sections. However, if you select
the USER1 or USER2 drive type, you may not obtain opti-
mum hard-disk drive performance. Also, the USER1 and
USER2 drive types cannot be used for hard-disk drives
greater than 528 megabytes (MB) in capacity.