Technical information

4-20 CHAPTER 4
The "IDE HDD AUTO DETECTION" utility is a very useful tool especially when you do
not know which kind of hard disk type you are using. You can use this utility to detect the
correct disk type installed in the system automatically. But now you can set HARD DISK
TYPE to Auto in the STANDARD CMOS SETUP. You don't need the "IDE HDD AUTO
DETECTION" utility. The BIOS will Auto-detect the hard disk size and model on display
during POST.
4-9 IDE HDD Auto Detection
ROM PCI/ISA BIOS(2A59IPAB)
CMOS SETUP UTILITY
AWARD SOFTWARE, INC.
Figure 4-9 IDE HDD AUTO DETECTION
HARD DISKS TYPE SIZE CYLS HEADS PRECOMP LANDZONE SECTORS MODE
Primary Master : 343 665 16 65535 664 63 NORMAL
Primary Slave :
Secondary Master :
Secondary Slave :
Select Secondary Slave Option (N=Skip) : N
OPTIONS SIZE CYLS HEAD PRECOMP LANDZ SECTOR MODE
1 (Y) 0 0 0 0 0 0 NORMAL
ESC : Skip
NOTE: HDD Modes
The Award BIOS supports 3 HDD modes : NORMAL, LBA & LARGE
NORMAL mode.
Generic access mode in which neither the BIOS nor the IDE controller will
make any transformations during accessing.
The maximum numbers of cylinders, heads and sectors for NORMAL mode are
1024, 16 and 63.
no. Cylinder (1024)
x no. Head ( 16)
x no. Sector ( 63)
x no. per sector ( 512)
528 Megabytes
If users set his HDD to NORMAL mode, the maximum accessible HDD size
will be 528 Megabytes even though its physical size may be greater than that.