Hardware Reference
In-Depth Information
I usually recommend disabling the serial and parallel ports if they are not being used because this
frees up those resources for other devices and potentially speeds up boot time.
Advanced Drive Configuration
Of all the BIOS Setup menus, the hard-disk settings are some of the most important.
As with many BIOS Setup settings, the default or automatic values are generally recommended. With
Auto settings, the BIOS sends a special Identify Drive command to the drive, which responds with
information about the correct settings. From this, the BIOS can automatically detect the specifications
and optimal operating mode of almost all ATA and SATA hard drives. When you select Auto for a
hard drive, the BIOS redetects the drive specifications during POST, every time the system boots.
You could swap drives with the power off, and the system would automatically detect the new drive
the next time it was turned on.
In addition to the Auto setting, most older BIOSs offered a standard table of up to 47 drive types with
specifically prerecorded parameters. Each defined drive type had a specified number of cylinders,
number of heads, write precompensation factor, landing zone, and number of sectors. This was used
often many years ago, but it is not used today because no current drives conform to the older type
parameters.
Note that systems dating from 1997 and earlier usually are limited to a maximum drive size of 8.4GB
unless they have a BIOS upgrade. Systems from 1998 and later usually support drives up to 137GB;
systems dating from 2002 and beyond usually support drives beyond 137GB (48-bit LBA support),
although a BIOS upgrade might be necessary for some systems.
Table 5.13 shows the Drive Configuration menu and options for a typical modern motherboard.
Table 5.13. Advanced Drive Configuration Menu Settings
 
 
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