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Standard CMOS Setup CBI/CGI Technical Reference
Chassis Plans4-4
• Set the drive type to Auto to have AMIBIOS detect the drive type and
parameters automatically each time the system is booted up. This option
does not display the drive type on the Standard CMOS Setup screen, but
does display it on the System Configuration screen shown after a successful
bootup.
• Select the Auto-Detect Hard Disks option on the AMIBIOS Setup Main
Menu to have AMIBIOS automatically detect the type and parameters of
each hard drive and place the information into the Standard CMOS Setup
screen. The detected drive type values may then be saved in the CMOS.
This option is described in the Running AMIBIOS Setup section of the
System BIOS chapter of this manual.
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NOTE: The auto detect feature displays disk parameter values as established by the
drive manufacturer. If the drive has been formatted using any other values, accepting the
auto detect values will cause erratic behavior. You must either reformat the drive to meet
the manufacturer's specifications or use the User type to enter parameters which match
the current format of the drive.
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User-Defined Drive Types
If the parameters supplied by the manufacturer of your disk drive do not match any of the
preprogrammed drive types provided by AMIBIOS, you may enter the parameters
manually.
The user-defined parameters for each of the four drives may be different, which effec-
tively allows four different user-definable hard disk types.
Scroll to the end of the drive type list to the User type. You can manually enter the Cyln,
Head, WPcom and Sec parameters. The Size parameter is automatically calculated and
displayed by the system based on the other parameters entered.
Use the arrow keys or tab key to move between fields. Once you have placed the cursor
in a field, type in the correct value.
The following explains the drive parameters which you must enter for a drive type which
is not in the list:
Type is the numeric designation for a drive with certain identification param-
eters.
Cylinders (Cyln) is the number of disk cylinders found in the specified drive
type.
Heads (Head) is the number of disk heads found in the specified drive type.
Write Precompensation (WPcom) is the read delay circuitry which takes into
account the timing differences between the inner and outer edges of the surface
of the disk. The size of the sector gets progressively smaller as the track
diameter diminishes. Yet each sector must still hold 512 bytes. Write precom-
pensation circuitry on the hard disk compensates for the physical difference in