Manuals

Storage Devices: Dell Dimension XPS 50/66 FS

General Notes on Drive Installation | Diskette and Tape Drives | CD-ROM Drives | Hard-Disk Drives

General Notes on Drive Installation

Choosing a Bay for the Drive | Terminators | Jumpers and Switches | Partitioning and Formatting Hard-Disk Drives

Choosing a Bay for the Drive

• Diskette drives must be installed in bays 1 and 2.
• Tape drives must be installed in bay 2 or 3. If the system has a diskette drive, install the tape drive in bay 2.
  If it includes 2 diskette drives, install the tape drive in bay 3.
• CD-ROM drives must be installed in bays 3 through 6.
• Hard-disk drives must be installed in bays 2 through 6.

NOTE: If 6 devices are installed, use a Y-shaped power cable extension to connect the 6th device to a DC power cable.

Terminators

For non-SCSI devices, the general rule is that a terminator is present on the drive connected to the first drive connector on the end of the interface cable. Exceptions to this rule are possible. Always refer to the documentation for the drive.

Some possible exceptions are:

• Some drives have permanently installed terminators, which are disabled by means of jumpers.
• Some drives have terminators that are never removed or disabled.
• SCSI devices have their own strict termination rules.

Jumpers and Switches

Drives may have jumpers or switches that must be set to reflect the configuration. Refer to the documentation for the drive. General guidelines for configuration jumpers/switches are as follows:

• Some diskette drives have jumpers that configure them as drive A or B.
• When daisy-chaining IDE drives, configure 1 or both drives in order for the operating system to differentiate between them.
• All SCSI devices must be configured with a unique SCSI ID number.

Partitioning and Formatting Hard-Disk Drives

Physical (low-level) formatting divides the disk into concentric magnetic tracks, which in turn are divided into storage segments called sectors.

• Physical formatting is rarely required; drives are shipped already physically formatted.
• If hard-disk drive problems occur, run the appropriate diagnostic tests. See the Diagnostics and Troubleshooting Guide for instructions.
• If physical formatting is required, refer to the documentation that came with the SCSI adapter card.
• IDE drives cannot be physically formatted.

Partitioning assigns the storage area to one or more logical drives. For MS-DOS�, use fdisk.exe to partition the drive. For OS/2� or the UNIX� operating system, see the documentation that came with the operating system.

Logically formatting the drive sets aside groups of sectors that store start-up information, directory information, status information, and data.

• For MS-DOS, use format.exe to format the drive.
• For OS/2 or the UNIX operating system, see the documentation that came with the operating system.

Diskette and Tape Drives

Drive Bay Locations and Cable Connections

To install a diskette, tape, or CD-ROM drive, follow these steps.

NOTE: If installing a tape drive that came with its own adapter and interface cable, do not use the system diskette/tape drive interface cable. Instead, install the adapter and interface cable supplied with the drive, referring to the instructions provided with the drive.

1. Slide the drive into the selected drive bay. If necessary, remove the front-panel insert covering the bay to be used.
2. Attach the DC power cable and the diskette/tape drive interface cable.
3. Update the System Setup program.

• Set the Diskette Drive category to match the diskette drive to be installed.
• If installing a tape drive as the 3rd drive, it is not necessary to update the System Setup program.
• If a tape drive is to be installed as the second drive, the Diskette Drive B category should be set to Not Installed.

4. Run the appropriate diagnostic tests. See the Diagnostics and Troubleshooting Guide for instructions.

CD-ROM Drives

1. Install a SCSI adapter (or the special CD-ROM controller that came with the drive) in the computer. For SCSI adapters, see the section on SCSI drives.
2. Slide the drive into the selected drive bay. If necessary, remove the front-panel insert covering the bay to be used.
3. Attach the DC power cable and the SCSI or CD-ROM interface cable.
4. Run the appropriate diagnostic tests. See the Diagnostics and Troubleshooting Guide for instructions.

Hard-Disk Drives

IDE Drives

1. Install the drive in the drive bracket.
2. Attach the DC power cable and the IDE cable.
3. Update the System Setup program. At the Hard-Disk Drive 1 category, select Auto Config.
   If a drive error message appears at the next start-up, the automatic drive-type detection feature may not work with the drive.
   Try entering the drive-type information in the Hard-Disk Drive 1 or Hard-Disk Drive 2 category.
4. Run the appropriate diagnostic tests. See the Diagnostics and Troubleshooting Guide for instructions.

SCSI Drives

1. Install a SCSI adapter card in the computer.
2. Set the SCSI ID number for the drive to be installed.
   SCSI ID numbers range from 0 to 7. Each device on the SCSI bus, including the controller, must have its own unique ID number.
   There are no requirements that SCSI ID numbers be assigned sequentially or that devices be installed on the SCSI cable in order of ID number.
   A SCSI drive is usually assigned ID 0. If the SCSI drive is to be used as the boot device, it must be configured as ID 0.
   If an IDE hard-disk drive is installed, it is automatically the boot device, regardless of the ID number assigned to the SCSI drive(s).
3. Install or remove the SCSI bus termination on the drive.
   Each end of the SCSI bus must be terminated.
4. Install the drive in the drive bracket.
5. Attach the drive's interface connector to the SCSI cable.
6. Update the system configuration information in the System Setup program.
   If only SCSI hard-disk drive(s) are installed, the Hard-Disk Drive 1 and Hard-Disk Drive 2 categories must be set to Not Installed.
7. Run the appropriate diagnostic tests. See the Diagnostics and Troubleshooting Guide for instructions.