IDE devices and hard drive guide(Written by Assaf & Bas)

[Goodguy]

IDE devices and hard drive guide
This is for those of you who are not expert PC builders.

I will give a basic explenation of how to setup IDE devices and how to deal with hard drives larger than the bios can handle.


IDE setup

Basic rules:

1.In most cases 2 IDE devices of differant interface (PIO, ATA33, ATA66 ATA100, ATA133) If connected on the same IDE cable will both work at the lower interface level or might even both default to PIO mode (slow).

2.IDE devices with ATA66 or higher interface need an 80 wire ATA cable. If an older 40 wire IDE cable will be used the drive will default to ATA33.
This cable must be connected correctly unlike the older one. The blue end goes in the motherboard, the black (last) for the master and gray (middle) for the slave.

3.While connecting a CD/DVD and a CDRW on the same IDE channel it is recommended the writer be master.

4.If 2 devices of differant interface mode (ATA33 and ATA100 for example) are connected on 1 IDE channel it is recommended the faster be set as master.

5.Installing a disk with an interface faster than the board can handle is usually not a problem since it is backwards compatible.
If problems do come up use the manufacturer's software to lower the drive's firmware setting to the appropriate speed.


Jumper settings

IDE devices must have 1 of 2 attributes: Master or Slave.
This attribute is how the IDE controller addresses the device.
A device can be set to Cable select, this will set the device automaticly according to it's position on the IDE cable, the middle connector is slve, the furthest one is master.

You can not have 2 devices on 1 IDE channel with the same attribute, unless it is cable select, which will autoset the drives to master and slave.

W.D drives have a separate setting for master with slave and stand alone (master without a slave).



What do I do if the bios of my motherboard doesn't recognize drives of a certine size ?
Here are your options :

A.Find a bios update for your board. If the manufacturer of the boad has writen a bios to support larger drives it might solve your problem.
This is the best solution if such an upgrade is available and you feel you know how to flash a bios.

B.Install a PCI IDE controller card, this card must have it's own bios!
This is the 2'nd best solution as it has extra costs, but it is the safest and might be faster than the outdated IDE controllers on your aged motherboard.

C.If you do not need to boot from this new drive and intend to only use it for storage while keeping the boot drive on the old HDD you do not need the bios te even detect the drive!
Set the coresponding IDE device in the bios to none and allow windows to detect the drive.
Don't forget to partition and format the drive in windows.
A good solution, but remember the drive won't be accessable in DOS mode.

D.Use the cylinder limitation jumper to make the bios detect the drive as a smaller volume than it actually is.
This is accomplished by jumpering the drive according to the manufacturer's instructions ( can be found below ).
Once you have done this your bios should detect the drive according to the following rule :
8-32GB->8GB
32 and up -> 32GB
At this point the rest of the drive won't be accessable, to be able to access the rest of the space you need a dynamic disk overlay utility which the manufacturers provide.
These are generally only good under windows 95/98/ME, not for linux or windows NT/2000/XP.
This solution is cheap, but not always dependable and tricky to accomplish.



Jumper setup for most drives available on the market :
Jumper settings below are with the drive oriented:
|----IDE----||jumpers||power|
They may not match all drive models! You can usually find this information directly on the hard drive body.

W.D:
Normal
::::: Stand alone
::|:: Master
:::|: Slave
::::| Cable select

Cylinder limitation mode
::||: stand alone
::|:| master
:::|| slave

http://www.westerndigital.com/
Disk manager (Data Life Guard Tools)



Seagate
Normal
|::: Master
:::: Slave
:|:: Cable select

Cylinder limitation mode
To limit the cylinders close the last jumper
:::|
All other jumpers are the same.

http://www.seagate.com/
Disk software page



Maxtor
Normal
|::: Master
:::: Slave
:|:: Cable select

Cylinder limitation mode
To limit the cylinders close the last jumper
:::|

http://www.maxtor.com/
PowerMax



Quantum
*Quantum disk department was bought by Maxtor!
No support available from Quantum.

Normal
|::: Master
::|: Slave
:|:: Cable select

Cylinder limitation mode
To limit the cylinders close the last jumper
:::|
All other jumpers are the same.

http://www.maxtor.com/
PowerMax



IBM
*IBM disk department was bought by Hitachi!
No support available from IBM.

Normal
|::| Master
::|| Slave
:|:| Cable select

Cylinder limitation mode
|:_ Master
::_ Slave

IBM Disk software page




Samsung
Normal
|::: Master
:|:: Slave
::|: Cable select
Download jumper table for older samsung drives

Cylinder limitation mode
||:: Master
:|-:
:||: Cable select
In PDF format

http://www.samsunghdd.com/
Disk manager (with instructions)



Written by Assaf & Bas

 

[Wonkanoby]

windows 2000 drives over 137 gb fix

needs sp 3 installed

Microsoft has implemented 48-bit Logical Block Address (LBA) support in ATAPI.SYS to support hard drives that exceed the 137 Gigabyte limit. Windows 2000 SP3 does not have 48-bit LBA support enabled by default. This means that the user has to enable 48-bit LBA support manually using the procedure described in appendix:


http://www.support.kayak.hp.com/kayaksupport/level4/601ktd060en/601ktd060en.html#P292_14890


Why can I only see 127 to 137 GBytes of my 160 GB drive in Windows XP?

this all pinched from here

http://www.seagate.com/support/kb/disc/faq/137_winxp.html

Windows XP on a traditional motherboard
Windows XP on a PCI Controller Card

Windows XP on a Traditional Motherboard

Windows XP manufactured prior to August 2002 has a native limitation of 137GB supporting ATA interface disc drives. In this configuration WinXP will not create partitions greater than 137GB until after the Service Pack is installed and registry bit EnableBigLBA is set to 1.

As of January 2003, new copies of Windows XP Full Versions have incorporated 48-bit Addressing for ATA interface disc drives. You can confirm that your copy has this support by inspecting the installation CD artwork. It should say "Windows XP Home (or Professional) Edition Including Service Pack 1."

For instructions on how to get the latest Windows XP service pack, please see Microsoft article Q322389.

See also the Microsoft Knowledgebase article Q303013 that explains how to enable large drive support after the Service Packs are installed.

Windows XP has a feature called System Restore that records and tracks changes to the system settings and files. If a restore point exists you can undo harmful changes to the previous settings. It is highly recommended that you create new system restore points prior to making significant changes to your system.

New System Considerations
If your system BIOS sees the full capacity of the drive and your Windows XP CD says "? Including Service Pack 1" you are completely ready to utilize ATA interface disc drives greater than 137GB. If your BIOS is not up to the task you can apply a BIOS update or use Seagate's DiscWizard Starter Edition and the DDO.

If your Windows XP CD does not indicate SP1, then your boot drive partition will have a maximum size of 137GB. After the OS and SP1 are installed, any additional gigabytes will show up as unallocated space on the drive and you can easily create a second partition with DiscWizard 2003 or the Windows disk management tools. Also, if you prefer to have a single partition, third party applications such as Partition Commander from VCom or Partition Magic from Powerquest may be able to stretch the partition to annex the newly found capacity.

Adding a Drive to an Existing System
If Windows XP is already up and running then check MyComputer Properties to determine if your version has SP1. If not, you should install the Service Pack before working with the new hard drive. If SP1 is installed and the Disk Administrator tools show 137GB on your new drive, then EnableBigLBA is not yet on.

Seagate's DiscWizard 2003 disc installation software for Windows is designed to make adding a new drive to a system as easy as possible. For your convenience, Seagate's DiscWizard installation software can set the EnableBigLBA bit in the registry and prepare the drive to full capacity if service pack support is active in the operating system.

Windows XP on a PCI Controller Card

Controller cards support ATA interface disc drives through onboard BIOS and custom Windows device drivers. Since the drives are supported by drivers that emulate the SCSI driver approach, the native Windows 137GB ATA limitation does not apply since those drivers are not in use.

Please see our list of 3rd party companies which are known to manufacture ATA controller cards that support drives greater than 137GB.

If your disc drives are recognized by the controller BIOS when the system is first powered on but later the drives are not seen by Windows then the device drivers for the controller card need to be installed. See your controller card documentation for directions.

As a matter of system maintenance, Microsoft recommends that you keep your system updated with the latest Windows XP Service Pack. For instructions on how to get the latest Windows XP service pack, please see Microsoft article Q322389.

Windows XP has a feature called System Restore that records and tracks changes to the system settings and files. If a restore point exists you can undo harmful changes to the previous settings. It is highly recommended that you create new system restore points prior to making significant changes to your system.

New System Considerations
Seagate's DiscWizard Starter Edition disc installation software is designed to make building a new system as easy as possible. This software supports several controller card models.

When building a new system, if you are using an ATA/133 PCI controller card which includes new ATA or ATAPI disk device drivers, the Windows XP operating system installation will pause briefly and ask for you to insert an OEM floppy diskette. This pause for new "adapter" drivers happens soon after the boot near the beginning of the installation. See your controller documentation for specifics.

If your Windows XP CD does not indicate SP1, then your boot drive partition will have a maximum size of 137GB. After the OS and SP1 are installed, any additional gigabytes will show up as unallocated space on the drive and you can easily create a second partition with DiscWizard 2003 or the Windows disk management tools. Also, if you prefer to have a single partition, third party applications such as Partition Commander from VCom or Partition Magic from Powerquest may be able to stretch the partition to annex the newly found capacity.

Adding a Drive to an Existing System
The installation procedure is relatively easy if your original boot drive is attached to the motherboard and your new drive is attached to the controller card as additional storage. If you want your new drive to become the boot drive, your system BIOS must have an option to control the boot device or to release boot control from the Primary Master to the controller card. This is sometimes listed as "boot from SCSI". Windows XP may require re-registration of the operating system if the boot device is changed after the original installation.

Seagate's DiscWizard 2003 disc installation software for Windows is designed to make adding a new drive to a system as easy as possible.


For more background information about 48-bit LBA addressing please visit our overview on this issue. You may also use our Capacity Limitations Walk-Through for 137 GByte limits, as well as other capacity limitations.

REFERENCE TO THIRD PARTIES AND THIRD PARTY WEB SITES. Seagate references third parties and third party products as an informational service only, it is not an endorsement or recommendation - implied or otherwise - of any of the listed companies. Seagate makes no warranty - implied or otherwise - regarding the performance or reliability of these companies or products. Each company listed is independent from Seagate and is not under the control of Seagate; therefore, Seagate accepts no responsibility for and disclaims any liability from the actions or products of the listed companies. You should make your own independent evaluation before conducting business with any company. To obtain product specifications and warranty information, please contact the respective vendor directly. There are links in this document that will permit you to connect to third-party web sites over which Seagate has no control. These links are provided for your convenience only and your use of them is at your own risk. Seagate makes no representations whatsoever about the content of any of these web sites. Seagate does not endorse or accept any responsibility for the content, or use, of any such web sites.

 

[Wonkanoby]

drive sizes in windows

 

[Wonkanoby]

IDE ATA and ATAPI Disks Use PIO Mode After Multiple Time-Out or CRC Errors Occur


IMPORTANT: This article contains information about modifying the registry. Before you modify the registry, make sure to back it up and make sure that you understand how to restore the registry if a problem occurs. For information about how to back up, restore, and edit the registry, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
256986 Description of the Microsoft Windows Registry

SYMPTOMS
After you suspending and resume your computer several times, hard disk performance may be reduced. If you use Device Manager to view the properties of the IDE channel to which the drive is connected, the Advanced Settings tab may show that the current transfer mode for the drive is "PIO Mode."
CAUSE
After the Windows IDE/ATAPI Port driver (Atapi.sys) receives a cumulative total of six time-out or cyclical redundancy check (CRC) errors, the driver reduces the communications speed (the transfer mode) from the highest Direct Memory Access (DMA) mode to lower DMA modes in steps. If the driver continues to receive time-out or CRC errors, the driver eventually reduces the transfer mode to the slowest mode (PIO mode).
RESOLUTION



http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=817472


quick fix for xp


To re-enable the typical, or faster, transfer mode for an affected device:
Double-click Administrative Tools, and then click Computer Management.
Click System Tools, and then click Device Manager.
Expand the IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers node.
Double-click the controller for which you want to restore the typical DMA transfer mode.
Click the Driver tab.
Click Uninstall.
When the process completes, restart your computer. When Windows restarts, the hard disk controller is re-enumerated and the transfer mode is reset to the default value for each device that is connected to the controller

 

[NovJoe]

RAID Functions Guide

What does RAID stand for ?
In 1987, Patterson, Gibson and Katz at the University of California Berkeley, published a paper entitled "A Case for Redundant Arrays of Inexpensive Disks (RAID)" . This paper described various types of disk arrays, referred to by the acronym RAID. The basic idea of RAID was to combine multiple small, inexpensive disk drives into an array of disk drives which yields performance exceeding that of a Single Large Expensive Drive (SLED). Additionally, this array of drives appears to the computer as a single logical storage unit or drive.

The Mean Time Between Failure (MTBF) of the array will be equal to the MTBF of an individual drive, divided by the number of drives in the array. Because of this, the MTBF of an array of drives would be too low for many application requirements. However, disk arrays can be made fault-tolerant by redundantly storing information in various ways.

Five types of array architectures, RAID-1 through RAID-5, were defined by the Berkeley paper, each providing disk fault-tolerance and each offering different trade-offs in features and performance. In addition to these five redundant array architectures, it has become popular to refer to a non-redundant array of disk drives as a RAID-0 array.

Data Striping
Fundamental to RAID is "striping", a method of concatenating multiple drives into one logical storage unit. Striping involves partitioning each drive's storage space into stripes which may be as small as one sector (512 bytes) or as large as several megabytes. These stripes are then interleaved round-robin, so that the combined space is composed alternately of stripes from each drive. In effect, the storage space of the drives is shuffled like a deck of cards. The type of application environment, I/O or data intensive, determines whether large or small stripes should be used.

Most multi-user operating systems today, like NT, Unix and Netware, support overlapped disk I/O operations across multiple drives. However, in order to maximize throughput for the disk subsystem, the I/O load must be balanced across all the drives so that each drive can be kept busy as much as possible. In a multiple drive system without striping, the disk I/O load is never perfectly balanced. Some drives will contain data files which are frequently accessed and some drives will only rarely be accessed. In I/O intensive environments, performance is optimized by striping the drives in the array with stripes large enough so that each record potentially falls entirely within one stripe. This ensures that the data and I/O will be evenly distributed across the array, allowing each drive to work on a different I/O operation, and thus maximize the number of simultaneous I/O operations which can be performed by the array.

In data intensive environments and single-user systems which access large records, small stripes (typically one 512-byte sector in length) can be used so that each record will span across all the drives in the array, each drive storing part of the data from the record. This causes long record accesses to be performed faster, since the data transfer occurs in parallel on multiple drives. Unfortunately, small stripes rule out multiple overlapped I/O operations, since each I/O will typically involve all drives. However, operating systems like DOS which do not allow overlapped disk I/O, will not be negatively impacted. Applications such as on-demand video/audio, medical imaging and data acquisition, which utilize long record accesses, will achieve optimum performance with small stripe arrays.

A potential drawback to using small stripes is that synchronized spindle drives are required in order to keep performance from being degraded when short records are accessed. Without synchronized spindles, each drive in the array will be at different random rotational positions. Since an I/O cannot be completed until every drive has accessed its part of the record, the drive which takes the longest will determine when the I/O completes. The more drives in the array, the more the average access time for the array approaches the worst case single-drive access time. Synchronized spindles assure that every drive in the array reaches its data at the same time. The access time of the array will thus be equal to the average access time of a single drive rather than approaching the worst case access time.

The different RAID levels

RAID-0: RAID Level 0 is not redundant, hence does not truly fit the "RAID" acronym. In level 0, data is split across drives, resulting in higher data throughput. Since no redundant information is stored, performance is very good, but the failure of any disk in the array results in data loss. This level is commonly referred to as striping.

RAID-1: RAID Level 1 provides redundancy by writing all data to two or more drives. The performance of a level 1 array tends to be faster on reads and slower on writes compared to a single drive, but if either drive fails, no data is lost. This is a good entry-level redundant system, since only two drives are required; however, since one drive is used to store a duplicate of the data, the cost per megabyte is high. This level is commonly referred to as mirroring.

RAID-2: RAID Level 2, which uses Hamming error correction codes, is intended for use with drives which do not have built-in error detection. All SCSI drives support built-in error detection, so this level is of little use when using SCSI drives.

RAID-3: RAID Level 3 stripes data at a byte level across several drives, with parity stored on one drive. It is otherwise similar to level 4. Byte-level striping requires hardware support for efficient use.

RAID-4: RAID Level 4 stripes data at a block level across several drives, with parity stored on one drive. The parity information allows recovery from the failure of any single drive. The performance of a level 4 array is very good for reads (the same as level 0). Writes, however, require that parity data be updated each time. This slows small random writes, in particular, though large writes or sequential writes are fairly fast. Because only one drive in the array stores redundant data, the cost per megabyte of a level 4 array can be fairly low.

RAID-5: RAID Level 5 is similar to level 4, but distributes parity among the drives. This can speed small writes in multiprocessing systems, since the parity disk does not become a bottleneck. Because parity data must be skipped on each drive during reads, however, the performance for reads tends to be considerably lower than a level 4 array. The cost per megabyte is the same as for level 4.

Summary:

RAID-0 is the fastest and most efficient array type but offers no fault-tolerance.

RAID-1 is the array of choice for performance-critical, fault-tolerant environments. In addition, RAID-1 is the only choice for fault-tolerance if no more than two drives are desired.

RAID-2 is seldom used today since ECC is embedded in almost all modern disk drives.

RAID-3 can be used in data intensive or single-user environments which access long sequential records to speed up data transfer. However, RAID-3 does not allow multiple I/O operations to be overlapped and requires synchronized-spindle drives in order to avoid performance degradation with short records.

RAID-4 offers no advantages over RAID-5 and does not support multiple simultaneous write operations.

RAID-5 is the best choice in multi-user environments which are not write performance sensitive. However, at least three, and more typically five drives are required for RAID-5 arrays.

Possible aproaches to RAID
Hardware RAID
The hardware based system manages the RAID subsystem independently from the host and presents to the host only a single disk per RAID array. This way the host doesn't have to be aware of the RAID subsystems(s).
The controller based hardware solution
DPT's SCSI controllers are a good example for a controller based RAID solution.
The intelligent contoller manages the RAID subsystem independently from the host. The advantage over an external SCSI---SCSI RAID subsystem is that the contoller is able to span the RAID subsystem over multiple SCSI channels and and by this remove the limiting factor external RAID solutions have: The transfer rate over the SCSI bus.
The external hardware solution (SCSI---SCSI RAID)
An external RAID box moves all RAID handling "intelligence" into a contoller that is sitting in the external disk subsystem. The whole subsystem is connected to the host via a normal SCSI controller and apears to the host as a single or multiple disks.
This solution has drawbacks compared to the contoller based solution: The single SCSI channel used in this solution creates a bottleneck.
Newer technologies like Fiber Channel can ease this problem, especially if they allow to trunk multiple channels into a Storage Area Network.
4 SCSI drives can already completely flood a parallel SCSI bus, since the average transfer size is around 4KB and the command transfer overhead - which is even in Ultra SCSI still done asynchonously - takes most of the bus time.

Software RAID
The MD driver in the Linux kernel is an example of a RAID solution that is completely hardware independent.
The Linux MD driver supports currently RAID levels 0/1/4/5 + linear mode.
Under Solaris you have the Solstice DiskSuite and Veritas Volume Manager which offer RAID-0/1 and 5.
Adaptecs AAA-RAID controllers are another example, they have no RAID functionality whatsoever on the controller, they depend on external drivers to provide all external RAID functionality.
They are basically only multiple single AHA2940 controllers which have been integrated on one card. Linux detects them as AHA2940 and treats them accordingly.
Every OS needs its own special driver for this type of RAID solution, this is error prone and not very compatible.

Hardware vs. Software RAID
Just like any other application, software-based arrays occupy host system memory, consume CPU cycles and are operating system dependent. By contending with other applications that are running concurrently for host CPU cycles and memory, software-based arrays degrade overall server performance. Also, unlike hardware-based arrays, the performance of a software-based array is directly dependent on server CPU performance and load.

Except for the array functionality, hardware-based RAID schemes have very little in common with software-based implementations. Since the host CPU can execute user applications while the array adapter's processor simultaneously executes the array functions, the result is true hardware multi-tasking. Hardware arrays also do not occupy any host system memory, nor are they operating system dependent.

Hardware arrays are also highly fault tolerant. Since the array logic is based in hardware, software is NOT required to boot. Some software arrays, however, will fail to boot if the boot drive in the array fails. For example, an array implemented in software can only be functional when the array software has been read from the disks and is memory-resident. What happens if the server can't load the array software because the disk that contains the fault tolerant software has failed? Software-based implementations commonly require a separate boot drive, which is NOT included in the array.

Disclaimer: Source is for reference only. Original contents extracted from www.uni-mainz.de/~neuffer/scsi/what_is_raid.html

 

[stilup]

Excellent lesson on Raid, thanks
Hardware vrs software rules.

 

[artic]

Originally posted by Goodguy
What do I do if the bios of my motherboard doesn't recognize drives of a certine size ?
Here are your options :

A.Find a bios update for your board. If the manufacturer of the boad has writen a bios to support larger drives it might solve your problem.
This is the best solution if such an upgrade is available and you feel you know how to flash a bios.

I have an MSI 648F Neo motherboard with bios version 7.4. Would anyone tell me if my current bios can detect a 160GB HDD?

 

[Wonkanoby]

its a brand new board so i would assume so

 

[artic]

Originally posted by Wonkanoby
its a brand new board so i would assume so

Thanks Wonkaboby.... I emailed msi support and they said the current bios of my mobo does support 160GB HDD

 

[tbronson]

I have a 925x Neo. I Have a  WD 740GD Raptor sata drive. and a standard cd drive. I have the Raptor plugged into the sata 1 and the cd drive plugged into the primary IDE slot. What is the correct bios config ? and what jumper setting should I make on the cd drive- master , slave ?  The cd drive not showing up . Thanks, Tom

 

[Apple renegade]

Are you sure it's the primary slot.
Since there is only one IDE slot on that board (the other two are IDE-RAID slots).

Setting is a master should work.

Good luck

 

[AP]

Hi I'm using a MS-6507 mobo.  Does anyone know whether this mobo supports 200gb hard drives?  Right now I am only seeing 127gb (131062mb), it seems odd because I thought the limit on WinXP is 137gb......anyways, thanks!!!

 

[Stu]

what SP of Windows? you need SP1 or higher to see full capacity. there is no Test Report for that mobo, but I would imagine it should work.

http://www.msi.com.tw/program/support/bios/bos/spt_bos_detail.php?UID=37&kind=1

BIOS 1.2 adds support for "Maxtor 160gb" HDD. not applicable to PCB v2. if you have PCB v2 (printed on mobo) you should be ok. if not, update the BIOS

 

[Supershanks]

Just playing about lokking at getting a new driver remembered

Wonkanoby drive sizes in windows

Just comparing it last column Approximate Binary Capacity needs to be factored by 1024/1000 to show capacity as it appears in XP Computer Management.

 

[Wonkanoby]

? the last column already does that

 

[Supershanks]

Thats why i referred to it i'm planning on a new 250gb which would give 232.83gb.
however looking at my existing drives

The Disk manager is showing capacities 1024/1000 to your table.

 

[VonSchtrom]

Xp Pro doesn't recognize my HD's on IDE1 & 2, only the one on IDE0.
Do I have to install a driver for it to recognize the other 2 HD's?

Under Win98Se, all 3 HD's are being recognized correctly.

 

[Wonkanoby]

post some specs and details in a new thread in main forum

this sections not for sorting things its mean as a faq base