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| Thread ID: 16008 | 2002-02-23 12:51:00 | What does this HD info mean? | Guest (0) | Press F1 |
| Post ID | Timestamp | Content | User | ||
| 36802 | 2002-02-23 12:51:00 | This info is in Setup. The new Seagate 40 GB HD IS PRIMARY SLAVE Cylinder 19158 Head 16 Precomp 0 Landing zone19157 Sector 255 The original Seagate 20 GB HD is PRIMARY MASTER Cylinder 39761 Head 16 Precomp 0 Landing Zone39760 Sector 63 I would like to know what are the cylinder and sector numbers tellig us? Is the smaller number of cylinders on the bigger drive OK? What does the sector difference mean? Thank you, Don M |
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| 36803 | 2002-02-23 21:12:00 | If your disks auto-detected and work ok don't worry about it. Check www.howstuffworks.com |
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| 36804 | 2002-02-24 02:46:00 | It used to be that a calculation: cylinders X heads X sectors X sector_size gave the size of the disk. The number 'cylinders' was the actual number of tracks on the disk; the 'heads' number was the actual number of heads (one head for each side of each of the physical disks in the drive); and 'sectors' was the actual number of sectors formatted onto each track. Now, it is very rare for *any* these numbers to correspond with the physical reality. The increasing sizes of the disks meant that the storage allowed for the numbers could not hold the real numbers. So we often saw heads marked '16 heads', when there were two heads, and only one platter. 63 sectors when there were more or fewer. The cylinder number likewise. The calculation still gives the size of the disk, but can reach the same answer from different inputs. One drive model might be installed using totally different sets of numbers on different systems. It would work, as long as the numbers the system saw stayed the same. If you entered a different set of numbers in the BIOS, your system would crash. This has caught a few people -- the BIOS has 'autodetected' a drive, and used a set of numbers which suit it, the disk has formatted, and the system installed according to that configuration. Then some clever person (an 'expert') comes along, reads the label on the disk and 'corrects' the BIOS settings. BOOM. Whimper. |
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| 36805 | 2002-02-24 06:58:00 | A good place to find out about things like cylinders, tracks, etc is www.webopedia.com | Guest (0) | ||
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