Large Disk Support in older Apricot Desktop
Machines
(Configuring IDE Drives using IDE Enhancer)
On machines with a standard IDE Hard Disk Controller chip fitted, MS-DOS
will only recognise a drive of 504MB. To enable large disk support, a software driver
called IDE Enhancer is required.
SETTING HARD DISK PARAMETERS IN BIOS
When installing Hard disk drives into Apricot machines the following
points should be noted.
| Bonsai based Machines |
BO / BN |
LS Pro 386SX-33 & 486SLC-33 |
These machines will only support Quantum Hard disks up to 540MB and the
Lightning 730MB, providing the latest version of BIOS is fitted (version 1.07.02 for BN
and 2.04.01 for BO). The drive will then be Auto-detected and given a value. Save and then
exit from setup and the machine is ready to load the software.
| Samurai based Machines |
SA / SD / SF |
XEN-LS II & XEN-PC |
These machines will only support the larger Hard drives if the latest
BIOS (1.06 for SA and 2.05 for SD / SF) is fitted. This BIOS supports the USER
DEFINED option. To set the drive parameters first select the User Defined Option in setup,
then select UserHDs. This detects how many drives are available. Select detect 1 or Detect
2 for the correct drive and then enter the Cylinders / Heads / Sectors (this information
is normally printed on the hard drive). If the drive is correctly configured then the
total size of the drive will be shown. Save and then exit from setup and the machine is
ready to load the software.
| A1 & J3 based Machines |
SH / SJ / VA |
XEN-PC: XEN-PCM: XEN-PCLS: EPx |
Enter Setup and select type 255 for the required drive (Drive 1 or 2 can
be selected using the tab key). Now press the F8 key, this interrogates the drive and sets
the parameters for the drive. Save and then exit from setup, the machine is then ready to
load the software.
| Caracal/Revenge/Ruby/Jade |
BN/RA/RB/RC/RD |
LS Pro (Caracal): XEN-PC: |
| & P2 based machines |
RE/RF/RG/RH |
XEN-PCM & XEN-PCLS |
These motherboards already incorporate a ECHS Drive detect function.
Therefore the IDE Enhancer software is not required for these machines.
INSTALLING THE IDE ENHANCER SOFTWARE
Once the Hard disks have been fitted into the machines the following
points should be noted when installing the IDE Enhancer software.
PLEASE NOTE: This software is destructive to ALL data on the Hard Disk.
All Machines
Boot the machine using the floppy disk supplied with the IDE Enhancer
software (Purchased from Apricot Spares as Part Number 15552031). After booting the screen
will show the syntax "Install IDE Enhancer" along with an exit prompt. Highlight
the Install command and press return. The next prompt will give the size of hard drive
available and will ask if all the space is required. Press Y if you want all DOS or N if
you require a smaller partition (i.e. if a network is required). If No is selected, the
required size will need to be added by the user. If Y is selected, "Creating New
Partition... Please Wait" appears on the screen, and then "New Partition
Created, Set to Active... Press any key to continue" is shown. Finally the prompt
"Do you want to Modify User Options" is highlighted and the default is N. Remove
the floppy disk and then reboot using the DOS installation disks or a boot disk so the
application software can be loaded.
After the application software has been loaded onto the Hard disk, the
machine will now recognise all the available space on the drive. |
