5.

Drives, Cables and Ports

5.1 Identify the names, purposes, and characteristics of storage
drives

A storage drive reads or writes information to magnetic or optical

storage media. The drive can be used to store data permanently
or to retrieve information from a media disk. Storage drives can
be installed inside the computer case, such as a hard drive. For
portability, some storage drives can connect to the computer
using a USB port, a FireWire port, or an SCSI port. These portable
storage drives are sometimes referred to as removable drives and
can be used on multiple computers. Here are some common
types of storage drives:

 Floppy drive
 Hard drive
 Optical drive
 Flash drive
 Network drive

Floppy Drive
A floppy drive, or floppy disk drive, is a storage device that uses
removable 3.5-inch floppy disks. These magnetic floppy disks can
store 720 KB or 1.44 MB of data. In a computer, the floppy drive is
usually configured as the A: drive. The floppy drive can be used to
boot the computer if it contains a bootable floppy disk. A 5.25-
inch floppy drive is older technology and is seldom used.

Hard Drive
A hard drive, or hard disk drive, is a magnetic storage device that
is installed inside the computer. The hard drive is used as
permanent storage for data. In a computer, the hard drive is
usually configured as the C: drive and contains the operating
system and applications. The hard drive is usually configured as
the first drive in the boot sequence. The storage capacity of a hard
drive is measured in billions of bytes, or gigabytes (GB). The speed
of a hard drive is measured in revolutions per minute (RPM).
Multiple hard drives can be added to increase storage capacity.

Optical Drive
An optical drive is a storage device that uses lasers to read data
on the optical media. There are two types of optical drives:

 Compact disc (CD)

 Digital versatile disc (DVD)

CD and DVD media can be pre-recorded (read-only), recordable

(write once), or re-recordable (read and write multiple times). CDs
have a data storage capacity of approximately 700 MB. DVDs have
a data storage capacity of approximately 8.5 GB on one side of the
disc.

There are several types of optical media:

 CD-ROM – CD read-only memory media that is pre-recorded.

 CD-R –CD-recordable media that can be recorded once.
 CD-RW – CD-rewritable media that can be recorded, erased,
and re-recorded.
 DVD-ROM – DVD read-only memory media that is pre-
recorded.
 DVD-RAM – DVD-random access memory media that can be
recorded, erased, and re-recorded.
 DVD+/-R – DVD-recordable media that can be recorded
once.
 DVD+/-RW – DVD-rewritable media that can be recorded,
erased, and re-recorded.
Flash Drive
A flash drive, also known as a thumb drive, is a removable storage
device that connects to a USB port. A flash drive uses a special
type of memory that requires no power to maintain the data.
These drives can be accessed by the operating system in the same
way other types of drives are accessed.

Types of Drive Interfaces

Hard drives and optical drives are manufactured with different
interfaces that are used to connect the drive to the computer. To
install a storage drive in a computer, the connection interface on
the drive must be the same as the controller on the motherboard.
Here are some common drive interfaces:

 IDE – Integrated Drive Electronics, also called Advanced

Technology Attachment (ATA) is an early drive controller
interface that connects computers and hard disk drives. An
IDE interface uses a 40-pin connector.
 EIDE – Enhanced Integrated Drive Electronics, also called
ATA-2, is an updated version of the IDE drive controller
interface. EIDE supports hard drives larger than 512 MB,
enables Direct Memory Access (DMA) for speed, and uses
the AT Attachment Packet Interface (ATAPI) to
accommodate optical drives and tape drives on the EIDE
bus. An EIDE interface uses a 40-pin connector.
 PATA – Parallel ATA refers to the parallel version of the ATA
drive controller interface.
 SATA – Serial ATA refers to the serial version of the ATA
drive controller interface. A SATA interface uses a 7-pin
connector.
 SCSI – Small Computer System Interface is a drive controller
interface that can connect up to 15 drives. SCSI can connect
 both internal and external drives. An SCSI interface uses a
50-pin, 68-pin, or 80-pin connector.

5.2 Identify the names, purposes, and characteristics of internal

cables

Drives require both a power cable and a data cable. A power

supply will have a SATA power connector for SATA drives, a Molex
power connector for PATA drives, and a Berg 4-pin connector for
floppy drives. The buttons and the LED lights on the front of the
case connect to the motherboard with the front panel cables.
Data cables connect drives to the drive controller, which is located
on an adapter card or on the motherboard. Here are some
common types of data cables:

 Floppy disk drive (FDD) data cable – Data cable has up to

two 34-pin drive connectors and one 34-pin connector for
the drive controller.
 PATA (IDE) data cable – Parallel ATA data cable has 40
conductors, up to two 40-pin connectors for drives, and one
40-pin connector for the drive controller.
 PATA (EIDE) data cable – Parallel ATA data cable has 80
conductors, up to two 40-pin connectors for drives, and one
40-pin connector for the drive controller.
 SATA data cable – Serial ATA data cable has seven
conductors, one keyed connector for the drive, and one
keyed connector the drive controller.
 SCSI data cable – There are three types of SCSI data cables.
A narrow SCSI data cable has 50-conductors, up to seven 50-
pin connectors for drives, and one 50-pin connector for the
drive controller, also called the host adapter. A wide SCSI
data cable has 68-conductors, up to fifteen 68-pin
connectors for drives, and one 68-pin connector for the host
adapter. An Alt-4 SCSI data cable has 80-conductors, up to
"15" 80-pin connectors for drives, and one 80-pin connector
for the host adapter.

NOTE: A colored stripe on a cable identifies Pin 1 on the cable.

When installing a data cable, always ensure that Pin 1 on the
cable aligns with Pin 1 on the drive or drive controller. Some
cables may be keyed and therefore they can only be connected
one way to the drive and drive controller.
5.3 Identify the names, purposes, and characteristics of ports
and cables

Input/output (I/O) ports on a computer connect peripheral

devices, such as printers, scanners, and portable drives. The
following ports and cables are commonly used:

 Serial
 USB
 FireWire
 Parallel
 SCSI
  Network
 PS/2
 Audio
 Video

Serial Ports and Cables

A serial port can be either a DB-9, as shown in Figure 1, or a DB-25
male connector. Serial ports transmit one bit of data at a time. To
connect a serial device, such as a modem or printer, a serial cable
must be used. A serial cable has a maximum length of 50 feet
(15.2 m).

USB Ports and Cables

The Universal Serial Bus (USB) is a standard interface that
connects peripheral devices to a computer. It was originally
designed to replace serial and parallel connections. USB devices
are hot-swappable, which means that users can connect and
disconnect the devices while the computer is powered on. USB
connections can be found on computers, cameras, printers,
scanners, storage devices, and many other electronic devices. A
USB hub is used to connect multiple USB devices. A single USB
port in a computer can support up to 127 separate devices with
the use of multiple USB hubs. Some devices can also be powered
through the USB port, eliminating the need for an external power
source. Figure 2 shows USB cables with connectors.

USB 1.1 allowed transmission rates of up to 12 Mbps in full-speed

mode and 1.5 Mbps in low speed mode. USB 2.0 allows
transmission speeds up to 480 Mbps. USB devices can only
transfer data up to the maximum speed allowed by the specific
port.

FireWire Ports and Cables

FireWire is a high-speed, hot-swappable interface that connects
peripheral devices to a computer. A single FireWire port in a
computer can support up to 63 devices. Some devices can also be
powered through the FireWire port, eliminating the need for an
external power source. FireWire uses the IEEE 1394 standard and
is also known as [Link].

The IEEE 1394a standard supports data rates up to 400 Mbps and
cable lengths up to 15 feet (4.5 m). This standard uses a 6-pin
connector or a 4-pin connector. The IEEE 1394b standard supports
data rates in excess of 800 Mbps and uses a 9-pin connector.
Figure 3 shows FireWire cables with connectors.

Parallel Ports and Cables

A parallel port on a computer is a standard Type A DB-25 female
connector. The parallel connector on a printer is a standard Type
B 36-pin Centronics connector. Some newer printers may use a
Type C high-density 36-pin connector. Parallel ports can transmit
8 bits of data at one time and use the IEEE 1284 standard. To
connect a parallel device, such as a printer, a parallel cable must
be used. A parallel cable, as shown in Figure 4, has a maximum
length of 15 feet (4.5 m).

SCSI Ports and Cables

A SCSI port can transmit data at rates in excess of 320 Mbps and
can support up to 15 devices. If a single SCSI device is connected
to an SCSI port, the cable can be up to 80 feet (24.4 m) in length.
If multiple SCSI devices are connected to an SCSI port, the cable
can be up to 40 (12.2 m) feet in length. An SCSI port on a
computer can be one of three different types, as shown in Figure
5:

 DB-25 female connector

 High-density 50-pin female connector
 High-density 68-pin female connector
NOTE: SCSI devices must be terminated at the endpoints of the
SCSI chain. Check the device manual for termination procedures.

CAUTION: Some SCSI connectors resemble parallel connectors. Be

careful not to connect the cable to the wrong port. The voltage
used in the SCSI format may damage the parallel interface. SCSI
connectors should be clearly labeled.

Network Ports and Cables

A network port, also known as an RJ-45 port, connects a computer
to a network. The connection speed depends on the type of
network port. Standard Ethernet can transmit up to 10 Mbps, Fast
Ethernet can transmit up to 100 Mbps, and Gigabit Ethernet can
transmit up to 1000 Mbps. The maximum length of network cable
is 328 feet (100 m). A network connector is shown in Figure 6.

PS/2 Ports
A PS/2 port connects a keyboard or a mouse to a computer. The
PS/2 port is a 6-pin mini-DIN female connector. The connectors
for the keyboard and mouse are often colored differently, as
shown in Figure 7. If the ports are not color-coded, look for a
small figure of a mouse or keyboard next to each port.

Audio Ports
An audio port connects audio devices to the computer. The
following audio ports are commonly used, as shown in Figure 8:

 Line In – Connects to an external source, such as a stereo

system
 Microphone – Connects to a microphone
 Line Out – Connects to speakers or headphones
 Gameport/MIDI – Connects to a joystick or MIDI-interfaced
device
Video Ports and Connectors
A video port connects a monitor cable to a computer. Figure 9
shows two of the most common video ports. There are several
video port and connector types:

 Video Graphics Array (VGA) – VGA has a 3-row 15-pin

female connector and provides analog output to a monitor.
 Digital Visual Interface (DVI) – DVI has a 24-pin female
connector or a 29-pin female connector and provides a
compressed digital output to a monitor. DVI-I provides both
analog and digital signals. DVI-D provides digital signals only.
 High-Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMi) – HDMi has a
19-pin connector and provides digital video and digital audio
signals.
 S-Video – S-Video has a 4-pin connector and provides analog
video signals.
 Component/RGB – RGB has three shielded cables (red,
green, blue) with RCA jacks and provides analog video
signals.
Disk Drives
In magnetic disk system, rotating stacks of disks were coated with
a special substance that was sensitive to magnetism. As the disk
rotated, the particles in the substance could be polarized
(magnetized), indicating a 1. The unpolarized areas would indicate
0s. This technology is the cornerstone of most current disk
storage types and hasn’t changed much since its inception. These
types of disk systems store data in nonlinear format and are called
random access storage devices, in contrast to tape’s sequential
access storage methods. The data can be accessed no matter
where it is located on the disk because the read/write head can
be positioned exactly over the requested data so you don’t have
to “fast forward” through the data that was stored before it.
There are two major types of disk systems—fixed and removable.

Fixed Disk Drives

Also known as hard disks and hard drives, fixed disks actually
contain several disks called platters, stacked together and
mounted through their centers on a small rod called a spindle (see
figure below). The disks are rotated about this rod at a speed
between 2,000 and 10,000 revolutions per minute (RPM). As the
disks rotate, one or more read/write heads float approximately 10
micro inches (about 1/10th the width of a human hair) above the
disk surfaces and make, modify, or sense changes in the magnetic
positions of the coatings on the disks. Several heads are moved
together as one unit by an actuator arm. There is usually one
head for each side of a platter. This entire mechanism is enclosed
in a hard disk case. These disks are called fixed disks because the
mechanism is not designed to be removed. The disk platters,
though perfectly free to revolve at high RPM, are fixed in place.

A fixed disk

Disk Organization
We must have a way of organizing this disk into usable sections.
It’s done by first dividing up the platters into sections as you
would a pie and then further dividing this area into concentric
circles, called tracks (see figure below). Tracks are numbered from
the outside (track 0) to the inside (track 902 on a 903-track hard
disk). A disk sector is the part of a track that falls in a particular
section of the “pie slice” on the disk.

Disk organization

If you can visualize several tracks stacked together vertically (the

same tracks on each disk), you might describe that collection of
tracks as a cylinder. In fact, that’s how tracks are referred to in a
discussion of the organization of disk information, because when
information is read from or written to a disk, the heads read or
write a sector-sized division of a track a whole stack at a time,
from top to bottom (see figure below). In other words, the disks’
tracks aren’t treated as individual tracks on single disks; they’re
treated as cylinders. This amounts to quite a bit of information
read or written at one time. The precise amount of information
that is read at once depends on the number of cylinders, heads,
and sectors, or what we call drive geometry.

Hard drive geometry

Disk Specifications
When a fixed disk is rated, it has several qualities that are given as
specifications. Size, or capacity, is just one of the properties given.
Size is determined by drive geometry. Let’s quantify this by giving
some values to each variable. Let’s say we have 903 cylinders, 12
heads (6 platters—1 head per side, 2 sides to each platter), and 63
sectors per track. A typical fixed disk has 512 bytes per sector
(that’s 0.5KB/sector). The capacity of the hard disk would be
341,334KB, or 333MB (903 cyl,12 heads,63
sectors/track,0.5KB/sector). These values are commonly given on
the outside of a fixed disk.

Another quality that is used to gauge the performance of an

individual drive is seek time. This value, commonly given in
milliseconds (ms), is how long it takes the actuator arm to move
from rest to the position where the read/write head will access
information. Additionally, because the platters rotate, once the
read/write is in position, it may take a few milliseconds for the
target sector to move under the read/write head. This delay is
known as the latency factor. Latency values are given in
milliseconds (ms). Because the faster a drive spins, the lower the
average latency values, drives are also rated with a spin speed.
Spin speeds indicate how fast the platters are spinning. They are
stated in revolutions per minute (RPM); higher RPM values mean
faster speeds and lower latency values. For example, if a disk has
a spin speed of 5,000 RPM, it will be rotating at 83.34 revolutions
per second. One rotation will take 1/83.34 seconds, or 11.9 ms.
This value would represent the largest possible delay (i.e., the disk
head is in position just after the required sector moved past it).
However, disk latency values are actually only average latency
values, because latency values are not constant. The target sector
could be close, or it could be far away. So in our example, we take
the largest possible latency (11.9 ms) and smallest possible
latency (0 ms) and average them to get the average latency: (11.9
ms 0)/2 = 5.95 ms. The two factors, seek time and latency,
make up the drive’s access time. Put simply, the average seek
time plus the average latency equals the drive’s access time. The
smaller the access time value is, the faster the drive.

Read/Write Processes
Now that we know how the drive functions and how the drives
are rated, let’s discuss the most important topic: how the drive
stores the information. At the most basic level, the disk works by
making flux transitions with an electromagnet in the read/write
head to store information on the disk surface. A flux transition is
the presence or absence of a magnetic field in a particle of the
coating on the disk. As the disk passes over an area, the
electromagnet is energized to cause the material to be
magnetized in a small area. The process by which binary
information is changed into flux transition patterns is called
encoding. There are many ways of converting 1s and 0s to flux
transitions. The simplest way is to interpret the presence of a flux
transition as a 1 and the absence as a 0. Because this was the
most obvious choice, the first hard disks (ST-506, ESDI types) used
this method of encoding, known as Frequency Modulation (FM),
and its cousin Modified FM (MFM). This worked well until
techniques for increasing the track/cylinder density became
almost too successful. What happened was that tracks would be
placed so tightly together that at higher speeds, the read/write
heads would affect not only the track immediately under the
head, but the adjacent ones as well. To solve this problem, a
technology known as Run Length Limited (RLL) was developed; it
spaced the 1s farther apart using a special code for each byte. This
method turned out to be more efficient for large drives than for
small ones. RLL encoding also introduced data compression, a set
of technologies that increased the amount of data that could be
stored on the drive. Most of today’s drives (IDE, SCSI, and so on)
use a form of RLL encoding. With this new type of encoding, much
more data could be transferred to the computer at once, but this
created a new problem. The interface would sometimes get
bogged down and would stop reading in order to “catch up.” This
was a problem because during this pause, the platters were still
rotating and the read/write heads could skip a whole bunch of
sectors. To solve this problem, disk designers developed a
technology known as interleaving.

A Question of Interleaves
Although interleaving may come up on the A+ Certification exam,
the topic is almost irrelevant with the hard drives available in the
last few years because the hardware technology has improved so
much. Here’s what you need to know for the test. Interleaving
involves skipping sectors to write the data instead of writing
sequentially to every sector. This evens out the data flow and
allows the drive to keep pace with the rest of the system.
Interleaving is given in ratios. If the interleave is 2:1, the disk skips
2 minus 1, or 1 sector, between each sector it writes (it writes to
one sector, skips one sector, then writes to the next sector). Most
drives today use a 1:1 interleave, because today’s drives are very
efficient at transferring information. A 1:1 ratio means that the
drive writes to one sector and then simply goes to the immediate
next sector (skipping 1 minus 1 sectors, or 0 sectors). A 1:1
interleave ratio really means that the drive has no interleave at
all.

To make it easier for the operating system to manage the storage

space, the information encoded on the drive is written to groups
of sectors known as clusters. A cluster is made up of up to 64
sectors grouped together (the actual number of sectors included
in a cluster varies with the size of the hard disk). When the
operating system is storing information, it writes it to a particular
cluster instead of to an actual sector because it’s more efficient
for the operating system to keep track of clusters than sectors.
The file that contains the information about where the tracks and
sectors on the disk are located is known as the file allocation
table, or FAT. It is contained in the outermost track (track 0) of the
disk. Why Is the FAT on Track 0? Because advances in disk
technology are constantly increasing the number of tracks, even
on disks of the same size (i.e., the designers are always striving to
increase the track density), if the FAT were located on the inside
track, it might be in a slightly different position on one disk than
on another. Also, because the outside track (track 0) is so easily
accessible, the FAT is placed there so that the computer can use a
simple routine to locate its operating system and disk
information. Moreover, this routine never needs to change.

Formatting the Disks to Prepare Them for Use

To create the FAT, a machine at the factory performs a procedure
known as a low-level format. This procedure organizes the disk
into sectors and tracks. Once the sectors and tracks have been
created, the low-level format procedure makes the FAT file and
records in it the positions of the new sectors and tracks.
Additionally, during this procedure, the low-level format
procedure meticulously checks the disk’s surface for defects. If
any are found, the locations of these “bad spots” are entered into
the FAT as well, so that the operating system knows not to store
any information in those locations. When an operating system is
installed, it will do a high-level format (or operating system
format) and create its own separate FAT that keeps track of where
clusters are located and which files are located in which clusters.
These two FAT technologies are applicable to all types of drives.

Removable Media Drives

Another type of drive system is removable media drives.
Removable drives use technologies similar to fixed disk (fixed
media) drives, except the storage medium is removable. The
obvious advantage is that removable media multiplies the
usefulness of the drive. With a hard disk, when the disk is full, the
only two things you can do to increase space are to delete some
information or get a larger drive. With removable media drives,
you can remove the full disk and insert a blank one. Other than
the Zip and Jaz drives discussed in Chapter 2 (and other than
removable hard drives themselves), there are numerous
categories of removable media drives covered on the test, as
discussed in the rest of this section.
Floppy Disk Drives
The type of removable media drive that is the most often
described is the floppy disk drive. It is called that because the
original medium was flexible. Floppy disks are like fixed disks, but
they have only one “platter” encased in a plastic shell. There are
several types of floppy disk drives available in many different
capacities (The following figure shows a 1.44MB 31⁄2-inch drive).

A floppy disk drive

A floppy drive has either one or two read/write heads. Each head
moves in a straight line on a track over the disk rather than on an
angular path as with fixed disk systems. When the disk is placed
into the drive, a motor engages the center of the disk and rotates
it. This action moves the tracks past the read/write heads.

CD-ROM Drives
Another type of removable media drive is the CD-ROM drive (see
figure below). These drives are slightly different from other
storage media in several ways. First of all, they have a different
way of reading information than magnetic media disk drives do.
Because CD-ROM drives use laser light to read the information
from the media, they are described as optical drives.

A CD-ROM drive

When reading information from a CD, the drive is basically

reading a lot of pits and lands (lands are the spaces between the
pits) in the disc surface. The pits are etched into the CD at
production time. The laser reflects off the CD’s surface and onto a
sensor. The sensor detects the pattern of pits and lands as the
disc rotates and translates them into patterns of 1s and 0s. This
binary information is fed to the computer that is retrieving the
data. Another difference between magnetic media and CD-ROM
drives is that CDROM drives are read-only devices (CD-ROM
stands for Compact Disc–Read- Only Memory). The only way of
writing to a CD-ROM is during manufacture time, where the pits
are “burned” into the substrate of the disc. Once written, they
cannot be erased. The reason CD-ROMs are so popular, even
though they can’t be written to, is their large capacity (greater
than 500MB) and easy access. They are a great choice for archival
storage. Most often used for software distribution, they have
really taken off in the past few years as the speed of CD-ROM
drives has increased.

Recordable and rewritable CD devices are becoming popular; but

strictly speaking, they are not CD-ROMs. Technically, these
devices are called rewritable compact discs. Finally, a CD-ROM
disc has a single track that runs from the center to the outside
edge, exactly the reverse of the groove on a record. A CD-ROM
uses basically the same technology as the audio compact discs in
use in most homes today. When a CD-ROM is placed into a CD-
ROM drive, a motor spins the CD at a specific rate. A laser that
reads the CD is then activated. Because of these basic similarities,
there are several compatibilities between the different compact
disc technologies. For example, it is possible to play audio CDs in a
computer’s CD-ROM drive. Also, some computer CDs have audio
tracks on them and are made to be used in either type of CD drive
(home audio or computer). This compatibility is possible because
of standards. Standards are put together by committee (de jure
standards) or documented simply to recognize a standard that’s
already in practice (de facto standards). CD-ROM standards are
put together by several groups, the largest of which is the
International Standards Organization (ISO), which has defined
several standards.
Optical Disk Drives
Another type of disk is the optical disk. An optical disk is much like
a CD-ROM except that optical disks can be read from and written
to (like fixed disks, except optical disks are similar to CD-ROM
discs and thus a laser is used). The upside is that optical disks are
removable and can hold lots of information. The downside is that
they are expensive and are still slower than fixed disks.

Tape Drives
The final type of removable media drive is a tape drive (see figure
below). The tape cartridge uses a long polyester ribbon coated
with magnetic oxide wrapped around two spools. As the tape
unwinds from one spool, it passes by a read/write head in the
drive that retrieves or saves the information. It then proceeds to
the other spool where it is kept until needed again.

A tape drive

Tape media is great for large-capacity storage, but it is agonizingly

slow. The
best application for tape media is for backup purposes. Current
tape technology uses 4mm or 8mm Digital Audio Tape (DAT) or
Digital Linear Tape (DLT) for its storage medium. With these
technologies, it is possible to store up to 70GB of
data on a single tape cartridge.
Disk Theory
With all of these storage technologies available, there are many to
choose from.
Which one is the best? The answer is, “It depends.” Each type of
storage has its own benefits and drawbacks. Each type of storage
is ideally suited to a different application. To help understand this,
a model has been developed to define the different types of
storage. This model is called the “storage pyramid” and shows
the relationship between the types of storage and their benefits
(see Figure 4.7).
FIGURE 4 . 7 The “storage pyramid”

As you can see, at the bottom of the pyramid the storage types
have the largest capacity but the slowest access times.
additionally, those types have the least expensive cost per
megabyte.
Floppy Disk Systems
There are four major types of floppy disk drives in use today. They
are usually identified by the size of the media they use and the
capacity of that media. We’ll cover each one and its associated
configuration and troubleshooting issues.
But before we do, let’s discuss the four components of a floppy
drive subsystem:
 The disk (also called the medium), the drive, the controller,
and the cable.
The Medium
The floppy disk, as we have already mentioned, is the removable
medium on which information is stored in a floppy disk system.
There are two major types in use today, the 51⁄4-inch “floppy” disk
and the 31⁄2-inch “diskette” (sometimes incorrectly called a “hard
floppy” or even a “hard disk”). Both are shown in Figure
4.8.
FIGURE 4 . 8 A 51⁄4-inch floppy disk and a 31⁄2-inch diskette

31⁄2-Inch Diskette
The other type of floppy disk media is not really “floppy” at all.
Some people mistakenly call it a “hard disk.” Its real name is a 31⁄2-
inch diskette (to differentiate it from a full-grown “disk,” we
suppose). The 31⁄2-inch diskettes are also made from a polyester
disk coated with a layer of iron oxide. This disk is enclosed in a
durable, plastic case. This was an improvement over the 51⁄4-inch
Variety because the 51⁄4-inch floppies were easily creased or
damaged. Also, the 31⁄2-inch diskettes have a metal shutter over
the media access window. Again, this was an improvement over
51⁄4-inch media because people often grasped the disks
inadvertently by this edge of the disk, pressing their fingers onto
the media and thus contaminating the disk, making it difficult to
read. Finally, there is a notch with a sliding plastic tab over it to
write protect the 31⁄2-inch disk. This is also better than 51⁄4-inch
disks because the write-protect notch in the other disks was
covered with a type of tape that could come loose
in the drive and cause gum-ups.
The Drives
The next item we need to discuss is the floppy disk drives
themselves. There are three items we need to discuss regarding
the drives: media size, form factor, and capacity.
Media Size
Because we just covered media size in our discussion of the
media, we’ll just refer you to the previous paragraphs and
continue on. We do want to make one note, however. You can’t
put a 51⁄4-inch diskette into a 31⁄2-inch drive. Or vice versa. I
know some of you are saying, “Thank you, Captain Obvious, for
that enlightening Copyright ©2001SYBEX , Inc., Alameda, CA
[Link] 168 Chapter 4 _ Disk System Architecture
bit of minutia.” However, it has become apparent to us that not
everyone seems to know this fundamental rule; we are constantly
pulling folded-up 51⁄4-inch disks out of 31⁄2-inch drives.
Form Factors
There are three main types of form factors, or drive styles,
available today. A form factor usually just means the physical
dimensions and characteristics. Today’s floppy disk drives use
either the full-height, half-height, or combo form factors. Full-
height drives were the only ones available for the first PCs. The
drives were large and bulky and usually lower in capacity than
today’s drives.
Half-height drives take up only half the space (vertically) of full-
height drives. (Captain Obvious?)
The final form factor is becoming more popular as space becomes
a premium in computer cases. The combination form factor (or
combo, for short) contains both 1.2MB 51⁄4-inch and 1.44MB 31⁄2-
inch drives in a half-height enclosure.
This has the obvious advantage of having both drives in the space
for one.
Capacity
The final topic in our discussion of drives is their capacity. The
capacities range from 360KB to 1.44MB in various form factors.
Table 4.2 details the range of capacities available today, their
associated form factors, the number of sides used, and the
density of the disk. Some disks use only one side of the media,
whereas others use both sides. The density of a disk determines
how closely the sectors and tracks can be packed. Notice how the
combination of all three items relates to the capacity.
The Controller
The floppy disk controller (Figure 4.9) is the circuit board that is
installed in a computer and translates signals from the CPU into
signals that the floppy disk drive can understand. Often, the
floppy controller is integrated into the same circuit board that
houses the hard disk controller. Or even better, the controller
might be integrated into the motherboard in the PC. Some people
might like this approach, but from a technician’s standpoint, it’s a
nightmare. Imagine having to tell the customer that the reason
their floppy drive doesn’t work is because their motherboard
needs to be replaced at a cost of $1,100! Wouldn’t it be nicer
to tell them that you need to replace the $22 floppy disk
controller board?
FIGURE 4 . 9 A floppy controller with cable A floppy controller is
not a complicated device. The early controllers were large
expansion boards that usually contained an Intel 8272 or Zilog 765
controller chip. As this book is being written, you can buy a card
that contains the floppy controller, two serial interfaces, parallel
and game interface ports, and disk interface for about $35.

The Cable
The last topic on our list of prerequisites is the floppy drive cable
(shown in Figure 4.9). This cable is made up of a 34-wire ribbon
cable and three connectors. One of these connectors attaches to
the controller. The other two connect to the drives (one for drive
A:, the other for drive B:). You can attach up to two floppy drives
to a single controller. These connectors are specially made so that
they can be attached to the drives in only one way. Additionally,
you might think that with 34 wires, the data would be transmitted
in a parallel manner (8 bits at a time), but it isn’t. Data is
transmitted 1bit at a time, serially. This makes floppy transfers
slow, but usually the serial data transfer isn’t the bottleneck.
The cable also has a red stripe running down one side, as shown
in the detailed version in Figure 4.10. This stripe indicates which
wire is for pin #1 on the controller and on the drive(s). This pin is
usually marked with a small 1 or a white dot on the controller.
When connecting the drives to the controller, you need to
make sure that the red stripe is oriented so the wire it represents
is connected to pin #1 on the drive and pin #1 on the controller.
Also, you connect the drive that is going to be drive A: after the
twist in the floppy cable for most ISA floppy systems (very
important).FIGURE 4 . 1 0 A typical floppy cable A common
technician’s trick to remember how to connect floppy drives is to
say, “Point the red stripe toward the power cable.” The problem is
that this trick doesn’t work with every brand of floppy drive. It
could be considered a general “rule of thumb,” but not a “rule to
live by.”

Installation and Configuration

Now that we’ve covered the basics, let’s talk about installation,
configuration, and troubleshooting. Installing floppy drives is no
big trick. The first step is to connect the cable to the drive as per
the aforementioned instructions. Then, install the drive in the
computer by physically mounting it in the computer case and
connecting the power cable. Finally, you connect the cable from
the drive to the controller, as we discussed already. With regular
diskette drives, when connecting the cable to the drives, you
connect the B: drive to the connector before the twist in the cable
and the A: drive to the connector after the [Link] Disk Systems
ST-506 and ESDI drives were great drive systems in their day, but
by the time the IBM AT computer came out, drive sizes were
increasing beyond the capabilities of existing technologies to
utilize them. The only way out was to use a technology called SCSI
(pronounced “scuzzy,” it stands for Small Computer System
Interface—which we discuss in the next section). Although it was
technologically superior, it was also, at the time, quite expensive.
Two companies, Compaq and Western Digital, saw this problem
and developed an alternative to SCSI. Their idea was that if they
could develop a cheap, flexible drive system, people would buy it.
They were more right than they realized. That solution, known as
Integrated Drive Electronics (IDE) because its major feature was a
controller located right on the disk, is one of the most popular
drive interfaces on the market today.
In this section, we’ll discuss the theory behind IDE drive systems,
as well as their configuration and installation issues.
IDE Technologies
The idea for IDE (more commonly known as AT Attachment
interface, or ATA) was a simple one: Put the controller right on
the drive itself and use a relatively short cable to connect the
drive/controller to the system (Figure 4.11). This had the benefits
of decreasing signal loss (thus increasing reliability) and making
the drive easier to install.
FIGURE 4 .1 1 An IDE drive and interface

In addition, because the controller was integrated into the same

assembly as the drive, the only board that needed to be installed
in the computer was an adapter that converted signals between
the motherboard and the drive/controller.
The board is normally called a pass-through or paddle board. (This
board is often, incorrectly, called a controller. The term is
incorrect because the paddle board is often integrated with a
floppy controller, two serial ports, a game port, and a parallel
port. In fact, this combination is normally called a multifunction
interface board.) With some of today’s systems, the IDE adapter is
integrated into the motherboard. The original IDE specification, in
addition to being relatively simple to install, also can support
drives of up to 528MB and speeds of 3.3MBps. To overcome
Limitations, a new technology was developed that could support
drives of several gigabytes. This technology was ATA version 2
(ATA-2). Also, these newer drives have data transfer rates of
11.1MBps. Because of marketing information, the general
category of ATA-2 drives is known as Enhanced IDE, or [Link]
main limitation to IDE technologies is that they support only two
drives (or four if you’re using ATA-2). In order to add more drives,
you must use a different technology, like SCSI. In addition, you are
limited to only hard disks. To overcome this limitation, an
extension to ATA-2 was developed, called the ATA Packet
Interface (ATAPI). ATAPI allows other non–hard disk devices (like
tape drives and CD-ROMs) to be attached to an ATA interface and
coexist with hard disks. Another update to the ATA standard is
ATA version 4 (ATA-4), also known as Ultra DMA IDE. It can
transfer data at 33MBps, so it is also commonly seen in
motherboard specifications as Ultra DMA/33 or UDMA.
Installation and Configuration
Installation and configuration of IDE and EIDE devices is much
easier than it is with ST-506 and ESDI systems. The basic steps for
installing them are the same: Mount the drive in the carrier,
connect the cable to the drive, install the drive in the computer,
and configure the drive. However, IDE’s cabling and configuration
Issues are less complex. For example, you only have a single, 40-
pin cable to connect the drives to the computer. (And no, there
aren’t any twists in this cable.)
Cabling is just a matter of connecting the drive(s) to the cable and
plugging the cable into the paddle board (Figure 4.12). This is
made easier because the majority of the IDE cables today are
keyed so that they only plug in one way. If you happen to get one
of the cables that isn’t keyed, just use the red stripe trick (as
discussed earlier in this chapter).

IDE cable installation

You may also want to note that some IDE drives come with only a
two connector cable, as shown at the top of Figure 4.12. If you
need three connectors (for installing a second drive, as in the
bottom of the figure), you may have to go to your local electronics
supplier and get one. The one situation that does complicate
matters is when you have two (or more) drives in an IDE/EIDE
system. Remember that an IDE drive has the controller mounted
on the drive. If you had two drives connected, which controller
would be talking to the computer and sending data back and
forth? The answer is “Only one of them.” When you install a
second drive, you need to configure it so that the controller on
one drive is active and the other drives use the controller on this
drive for their instructions. You do this by setting the first drive to
be the master drive and the others to be slave drives. As you
might suspect, the master is the drive whose controller is used by
the other drives (the slaves).
Also, most computer systems currently use ATA-2 technologies or
above, which means that they can support four IDE drives. There
will be a primary and a secondary IDE bus, and each will have its
own master and slave drives. In these systems, you can have a
primary master, primary slave, secondary master, and secondary
slave drives. Which bus (primary or secondary) a device is shown
as depends on the bus to which you connect the drive. From
there, you can then designate each drive as master or slave as
described in the next section.
Copyright ©2001SYBEX , Inc., Alameda, CA [Link]
IDE Disk Systems 175 Most CMOS setup programs will display all
the IDE buses and which devices are connected in which positions.
You can check which bus and which designation (master or slave)
a device is configured for by using “View drive setup” (or similar)
in your computer’s setup program.
You implement the master/slave setting by jumpering a set of
pins. There are several different configurations of these pins, so
we’ll just detail the most common.
As always, check your documentation to determine which method
your drive uses.
The first type is the simplest. There are two sets of pins, one
labeled “master/ single,” the other labeled “slave” (Figure 4.13). If
you have one drive, you jumper the master side and leave the
slave side jumper off. If you have two drives, you jumper the
master side only on the first drive (at the end of the cable) and
jumper the slave side only on the other drive(s). A variant of this
type uses no jumpers on either to indicate just one drive on the
bus.
FIGURE 4 . 1 3 Master/slave jumpers

The other type commonly in use has three sets of pins labeled 1
through 6.
These six pins are arranged in three rows of two, with one set
labeled “master,” another set labeled “slave,” and the third set
with no label. With one drive installed, you leave all jumpers off.
With two drives installed, you set the first drive (usually located at
the end of the cable) to master by jumpering the two pins labeled
“master,” then set the second drive to slave by jumpering the two
pins labeled “slave.”
Copyright ©2001SYBEX , Inc., Alameda, CA [Link]
176 Chapter 4 _ Disk System Architecture
If you have two drives on a bus and both are set to master, or
both are set to slave, neither drive will work. In the first case (two
masters), they will be fighting each other for control of the disks.
In the latter case (two slaves), the disks won’t know where to get
their instructions from. However, if you have an EIDE interface
system, you can have two masters as long as the drives are on
two separate IDE buses.
Once you have the cable installed and the drives configured as
either master or slave, you must tell the computer that the drives
exist and what their drive geometry is. You do this by entering the
BIOS’s CMOS setup program (or the disk-based BIOS setup
program for older computers). This setup program modifies
the computer’s settings in the CMOS memory that stores the
configuration information for the computer. It is accessed by a
special key or key combination at startup. Some BIOSs use Del,
Esc, or one of the function keys; others use Ctrl+Alt+Esc. It should
be noted that some of the newer BIOSs will auto-detect
the type of drive installed in the system and automatically
configure these parameters. With this type of system, you only
need to accept these parameters and reboot.
If the drive you are installing is larger than 504MB (528,482,304
bytes), and most IDE drives today are, you must install it in a
computer that has a BIOS that supports Logical Block Addressing
(LBA). This technology allows the BIOS to access drives up to 8GB.
Most BIOSes made after 1995 support this feature (although
sometimes it has to be enabled).
Because each machine is different, we’ll just talk in general terms.
Once you have the disks installed, you enter the setup program,
go to the Fixed Disk area, and enter the appropriate numbers for
the number of cylinders, heads, and sectors that the drives have.
You then save these values and reboot the machine. At this
point, the system should recognize that there is at least one drive
in the system.
There is one problem: Standard BIOS configuration of Cylinders,
Heads, and Sector (CHS) information is limited to 1024 cylinders. If
you are installing a drive with more than 1024 cylinders, somehow
you must get the BIOS to recognize the drive’s full capacity. The
technology that BIOS manufacturers use to enable drive sizes
larger than 1024 cylinders (approximately 600MB) is sector
translation. Sector translation involves remapping the standard
CHS layout of a drive in favor of a matrix that will allow the full
capacity to be used. The most popular method is Logical Block
Addressing (LBA). In LBA, each sector of the drive is number
sequentially from the first usable sector to the last. With LBA
enabled, the BIOS translates the LBA number of the data being
requested into the CHS data for the drive. If you have a drive
larger than 1024 cylinders, you must have a BIOS that supports
LBA and it must be enabled.

You do not low-level format IDE (or SCSI) drives! IDE drives are
low-leveled at the factory and should never be redone. They use a
special utility to perform this delicate procedure. Performing a
low-level format on an IDE or SCSI drive will render your drive
unreliable, at the least (and will thus compound any problems
you may have already been having). At the worst, it will make the
drive completely useless by overwriting sector translation
information. Once you have the drive installed and recognized by
the computer, low-leveling is not necessary. Now that your drive
is installed, you can proceed to format it for the operating
system you have chosen. Then, finally, you can install your
operating system of choice.
And Now for the Real World…
IDE was such a popular hard disk interface that some people have
adapted CD-ROM and tape devices to operate on IDE-type
interfaces as well. Granted, it should be noted that an “IDE” CD-
ROM may or may not coexist peacefully with an IDE hard disk. The
former may reduce the performance of the latter. Some of
the new Compaq computers, for example, have included a second
IDE bus for the CD-ROM (it is labeled specifically for that purpose).
Small Computer Systems Interface (SCSI) The last type of disk
subsystem is probably the most flexible and the most robust.
Conversely, it’s probably also the most complex. In this section
we’ll discuss the theory behind the Small Computer Systems
Interface (SCSI), the different types of SCSI, and configuration and
installation issues.
As already mentioned, SCSI (pronounced “scuzzy”) stands for
Small Computer Systems Interface. It was a technology developed
in the early ’80s and standardized by the American National
Standards Institute (ANSI) in 1986. The standard, which is known
as ANSI document X3.131-1986, specifies a universal, parallel,
system-level interface for connecting up to eight devices
(including the controller) on a single, shared cable (called the SCSI
bus). One of the many benefits of SCSI is that it is a very fast,
flexible interface. You can buy a SCSI disk and install it in a Mac, a
PC, a Sun workstation, or a Whizbang 2000, assuming they make a
SCSI host adapter for it. SCSI systems are also known for their
speed. At its introduction, SCSI supported a throughput of
5MB/sec (5 to 10 times faster than previous buses).
SCSI devices can be either internal or external to the computer. If
they are internal, they use a 50-pin ribbon cable (similar to the 40-
pin IDE drive cable).
If the devices are external, they use a thick, shielded cable with
Centronics-50 or male DB-25 connectors on it. These devices
aren’t always disk drives. Scanners and some printers also use
SCSI because it has a very high data [Link] configure SCSI,
you must assign a unique device number (often called a SCSI
address) to each device on the SCSI bus (also sometimes call the
SCSI chain). These numbers are configured through either jumpers
or DIP switches.
When the computer needs to send data to the device, it sends a
signal on the wire “addressed” to that number. A device called a
terminator (technically a terminating resistor pack) must be
installed at both ends of the bus to keep the signals “on the bus.”
The device then responds with a signal that contains the device
number that sent the information and the data itself.
This information is sent back to the SCSI adapter, which operates
somewhat like a controller and somewhat like a paddle board.
The adapter is used to manage all the devices on the bus as well
as to send and retrieve data from the devices.
The adapter doesn’t have to do as much work as a true controller
because the SCSI devices are “smart” devices; they contain a
circuit board that can control the read/write movement. It can
also receive signals like “Get this information and give it to me.”
When a device receives a command like that, it is smart enough to
interpret the signal and return the correct information.
Types of SCSI
The original implementation of SCSI was just called “SCSI” at its
inception.
However as new implementations came out, the original was
referred to as “SCSI-1.” This implementation is characterized by its
5MBps transfer rate, its Centronics-50 or DB-25 female
connectors, and its 8-bit bus width. SCSI-1 also had some
problems. Some devices wouldn’t operate correctly when they
were on the same SCSI bus as other devices. The problem here
was mainly that the ANSI SCSI standard was so new that vendors
chose to implement it differently. These differences would be the
primary source of conflicts.
After a time, the first major improvement to SCSI-1 was
introduced. Known as SCSI-2 (ANSI Standard document X3.131-
1994), it improved SCSI-1 by allowing for more options. These
options produced several subsets of SCSI-2, each having its own
name and characteristics. But the most obvious change from SCSI-
1 is that SCSI-2 now uses a higher-density connector (see Figure
4.14).Also, SCSI-2 is backward compatible with SCSI-1 devices.
A SCSI-2 connector

The first improvement that was designed into SCSI-2 was a wider
bus. The new specification specified both 8-bit and 16-bit buses.
The larger of the two specifications is known as Wide SCSI-2
because it’s wider (Captain Obvious rides again). It improved data
throughput for large data transfers. Another important change
was to improve upon the now-limiting 5MBps transfer rate.
The Fast SCSI-2 specification allowed for a 10MBps transfer rate,
thus allowing transfers twice as fast as SCSI-1. So, Wide SCSI-2
transfers data 16 bits at a time, Fast SCSI transfers data 8 bits at a
time, but twice as fast (at 10MBps).
Another option was to combine both into a blazingly fast
technology known as SCSI-2 Fast-Wide. It combined the speed of
Fast SCSI-2 with the bus width of Wide SCSI-2 to produce a
transfer rate of 40MBps! Finally, there is a new SCSI standard,
SCSI-3 One of the feature sets is known as Fast-20 SCSI (also
known to some as Ultra SCSI). Basically, this is a faster version
of Fast SCSI-2 operating at 20MBps for narrow SCSI and 40MBps
for Wide SCSI. Another feature set is the Ultra2 Low Voltage
Differential (LVD), which increases the maximum SCSI bus length
to 25 meters (82 feet) and increases the maximum possible
throughput to 160MBps (on Ultra2 Wide LVD).
There are other proposed SCSI implementations, like Apple’s
FireWire, Fiber Channel, and IBM’s SSA, all offering speeds in the
hundreds of MBps range. Fibre Channel, specifically, is gaining
support in the LAN arena because of its high-speed storage access
and shared-media capability. The name Fibre Channel is
somewhat of a misnomer because the technology will run over
fiber optic cable, STP, or coaxial cable.
SCSI Device Installation and Configuration
Installing SCSI devices is rather complex, but you still follow the
same basic steps as mentioned with the other types of drives
(refer back to the previous types of hard disk interfaces if you’re
still unclear). The main issues with installing SCSI devices are
cabling, termination, and addressing.

We’ll discuss termination and cabling together because they are

very closely tied together. There are two types of cabling: _
Internal cabling uses a 50-wire ribbon cable with several keyed
connectors on them. These connectors are attached to the
devices in the computer (the order is unimportant), with one
connector connecting to the adapter. _ External cabling uses
thick, shielded cables run from adapter to device to device in a
fashion known as daisy-chaining (see Figure 4.15). Each device
has two ports on it (most of the time). When hooking up external
SCSI devices, you run a cable from the adapter to the first device.
Then you run a cable from the first device to the second device,
from the second to the third, and so on.
FIGURE 4 . 1 5 A “daisy chain”
Because there are two types of cabling devices, you have three
ways of connecting them. The methods differ by where the
devices are located and whether or not the adapter has the
terminator installed. The guide to remember here is that both
ends of the bus must be terminated:
Internal devices only The first situation we’ll discuss is one in
which you have internal devices only (Figure 4.16). When you
have only internal SCSI devices, you connect the cable to the
adapter and to every SCSI device in the computer. You then install
the terminating resistors on the adapter and on the last drive in
the chain only. All other terminating resistors are removed.
Cabling internal SCSI devices only
Some devices and adapters don’t use terminating resistor packs;
instead you use a jumper or DIP switch to activate or deactivate
SCSI termination on such devices. (Where do you find out what
type your device uses? In the documentation, of course.)
External devices only In the next situation, you have external
devices only (Figure 4.17). By external devices, we mean each
with its own power supply.
You connect the devices in the same manner you connected
internal devices, but in this method you use several very short
(less than 0.5 meters) “stub” cables to run between the devices in
a daisy chain (rather than one, long cable with several
connectors). The effect is the same. The adapter and the last
device in the chain (the one with only one stub cable attached to
it) must be terminated.
FIGURE 4 . 1 7 Cabling external SCSI devices only
Both internal and external devices Finally, there’s the hybrid
situation in which you have both internal and external devices
(Figure 4.18). Most adapters have connectors for both internal
and external SCSI devices—if yours doesn’t have both, you’ll need
to see if anybody makes one that will work with your devices. For
adapters that do have both types of connectors, you connect your
internal devices to the ribbon cable and attach the cable to the
adapter. Then, you daisy-chain your external devices off the
external port. Finally, you terminate the last device on each chain,
leaving the adapter UN terminated.
FIGURE 4 . 1 8 Cabling internal and external SCSI devices together
Even though the third technique described is the technically
correct way to install termination for the hybrid situation (in
which you have both internal and external devices), some adapter
cards still need to have terminators installed (for instance,
Adaptec AHA-1542s). If you set up both internal and external
devices and none of them work, you might have one of these
adapters. Try enabling termination on it to see if that fixes the
problem.
In addition to running the cable(s) correctly, it is important that
you realize that you are limited to the number of devices you can
have on the SCSI channel as well as the maximum length of the
SCSI bus. Generally speaking, the faster the SCSI, the shorter the
total length of the bus.
TABLE 4 . 3 SCSI Differences
Now that you have them all correctly connected, you need to
assign each device a unique SCSI ID number. This number can be
assigned by jumper (with internal devices) or with a rotary switch
(on external devices). You start by assigning your adapter an
address. This number can be any number from 0 to 7 on an 8-bit
bus, 0 to 15 on a 16-bit bus, and 0 to 31 on a 32-bit bus, as long as
no other device is using that ID.
At our office, we have an 8-bit bus, so we normally set our
adapter to 7 if we’re using regular PC SCSI. This is because on PC
SCSI, the higher the number, the higher the priority. If two devices
request the bus at the same time, the device with the higher
priority wins. However, if we were running PS/2 SCSI, the opposite
would hold true (lower numbers, higher priority). So on PS/2s we
would set our adapter to 0. Every other device can be set to any
number as long as it’s not in use. However, there are some
recommendations that are commonly accepted by the PC
community. Remember that these are guidelines, not rules:
_ Generally speaking, give slower devices higher priority so they
can access the bus whenever they need it.
_ Set the bootable (or first) hard disk to ID 0.
_ Set the CD-ROM to ID 3.
One other note regarding setting the SCSI ID on internal devices:
most internal devices use three sets of jumpers to set the SCSI ID.
These three sets of jumpers represent three binary digits. The
highest three-digit binary number is 111, the decimal equivalent
of which is 7, or eight discrete positions (0-7). The presence of a
jumper on one of these jumper sets would represent a binary “1”
in that position.
The absence of the same would indicate a binary “0”. You set the
decimal SCSI ID of a device by placing or removing jumpers on the
three sets of pins so that the binary number indicated represents
the SCSI ID you want the device set to. For example, if you want to
set a device to SCSI ID 3, you must find out what the
binary representation is. Remember from Chapter 1 that 011 is
the binary representation of the decimal number 3. Therefore,
you would jumper the rightmost two pins (although you should
check which pins in your drive’s documentation).
Now that you’ve got the devices cabled together and terminated
correctly, you have to get the PC to recognize the SCSI adapter
and its devices. The good news is that you don’t have to modify
the PC’s CMOS settings. As a matter of fact, because SCSI devices
are intelligent, you tell the PC that there is no disk installed and
let the adapter handle controlling of the devices. You have two
other ways of getting the PC to recognize the SCSI devices:
_ If the device is going to be bootable, then you must set the card
to be “BIOS enabled,” meaning that the card has its own BIOS
extension that will allow the PC to recognize the device without a
software driver. The downside to this method is that the adapter
must be configured to use an area in reserved memory for its
BIOS. However, in a machine with only SCSI devices, it’s the most
efficient method.
_ The other method, in case you haven’t guessed it, is to load into
the operating system a driver for the adapter. This method only
works if you are booting from some other, non-SCSI device. If you
must boot from the SCSI drive, you must use the preceding
method. This method is commonly used when the only SCSI
device attached to the computer is a scanner or CD-ROM drive.
Generally speaking, it’s a bad idea to mix SCSI with any other disk
technology. The only way you can make mixing work is to have
the SCSI disks be secondary storage devices. It will degrade the
performance of your system, however, because the boot files will
be located on the first hard disk (the non-SCSI one). It will not
work to have it the other way around (SCSI first, other disks
second) because in that situation, their BIOSs will conflict as to
who is the “boss.”
Now that you have the drive installed and talking to the
computer, you’re almost done. At this point you can high-level
format the media and install the operating system.
Remember the note about low-level formatting IDE and SCSI
drives—don’t do it! If there are problems, double-check the
termination and ID numbers. If everything looks correct, try
changing ID numbers one at a time. SCSI addressing is one of
those areas that is a “voodoo” art. Some things that should work
don’t, and some things that shouldn’t work do.