BIOS settings

  • Thread starter Thread starter John R
  • Start date Start date
J

John R

What should the BIOS settings be for the addition of a new hard drive as a
slave drive to the master drive? Current settings are : First Boot Drive --
Removable Devices. Second Boot Drive -- ATAPI CD-ROM Drive. Third Boot
Drive -- Hard Drive. Fourth Boot Drive -- Network Boot. Is there a need for
change?
 
John R said:
What should the BIOS settings be for the addition of a new hard drive as a
slave drive to the master drive? Current settings are : First Boot
Drive -- Removable Devices. Second Boot Drive -- ATAPI CD-ROM Drive.
Third Boot Drive -- Hard Drive. Fourth Boot Drive -- Network Boot. Is
there a need for change?
Click to expand...

No
 
John said:
What should the BIOS settings be for the addition of a new hard drive
as a slave drive to the master drive? Current settings are : First
Boot Drive -- Removable Devices. Second Boot Drive -- ATAPI CD-ROM
Drive. Third Boot Drive -- Hard Drive. Fourth Boot Drive -- Network
Boot. Is there a need for change?
Click to expand...


Three points:

1. Adding a slave drive without an operating system on it should have no
effect on what the boot order should be.

2. Not everyone has the same opinion on what the boot order should be.

3. My strong recommendation is that the bootable hard drive be *first* in
the boot order, not third as you have it. The problem with having the floppy
and CD drive before the hard drive is that if you accidentally leave a disk
in the drive, and that drive happens to be infected with a boot-sector
virus, you will get infected the next time you boot.

True, boot-sector viruses aren't as common as they used to be, but in my
view, that's not a good reason to run the risk, especially since it's so
easy to avoid any risk at all. I recommend keeping the hard drive first, and
changing the boot order to floppy first or CD first (temporarily) only when
you need to boot from one of those devices (which should be very rare these
days).
 
To add more to this .. make sure you have set the jumpers correctly on the
slave hard drive to make it a slave.

Otherwise the recommondations by Ken are excellent.
 
ifanatic said:
To add more to this .. make sure you have set the jumpers correctly
on the slave hard drive to make it a slave.
Click to expand...


That's not really pertinent to his particular question, but it certainly
doesn't hurt to remind him of it.

But one more point, while you are mentioning jumpers: Some drives have a
jumper setting for an "only" drive. While John is checking jumper settings,
he should also check to see that the drive that is now to be "master" has
its jumper set to master, and not to only.
 
And the BIOS needs to be set to auto detect the drives,
apart from boot order selection.



message | ifanatic wrote:
|
| > To add more to this .. make sure you have set the
jumpers correctly
| > on the slave hard drive to make it a slave.
|
|
| That's not really pertinent to his particular question,
but it certainly
| doesn't hurt to remind him of it.
|
| But one more point, while you are mentioning jumpers: Some
drives have a
| jumper setting for an "only" drive. While John is checking
jumper settings,
| he should also check to see that the drive that is now to
be "master" has
| its jumper set to master, and not to only.
|
| --
| Ken Blake - Microsoft MVP Windows: Shell/User
| Please reply to the newsgroup
|
|
| > Otherwise the recommondations by Ken are excellent.
| >
| > "Ken Blake, MVP" wrote:
| >
| >> John R wrote:
| >>
| >>> What should the BIOS settings be for the addition of a
new hard
| >>> drive as a slave drive to the master drive? Current
settings are :
| >>> First Boot Drive -- Removable Devices. Second Boot
Drive -- ATAPI
| >>> CD-ROM Drive. Third Boot Drive -- Hard Drive. Fourth
Boot Drive --
| >>> Network Boot. Is there a need for change?
| >>
| >>
| >> Three points:
| >>
| >> 1. Adding a slave drive without an operating system on
it should
| >> have no effect on what the boot order should be.
| >>
| >> 2. Not everyone has the same opinion on what the boot
order should
| >> be.
| >>
| >> 3. My strong recommendation is that the bootable hard
drive be
| >> *first* in the boot order, not third as you have it.
The problem
| >> with having the floppy and CD drive before the hard
drive is that if
| >> you accidentally leave a disk in the drive, and that
drive happens
| >> to be infected with a boot-sector virus, you will get
infected the
| >> next time you boot.
| >>
| >> True, boot-sector viruses aren't as common as they used
to be, but
| >> in my view, that's not a good reason to run the risk,
especially
| >> since it's so easy to avoid any risk at all. I
recommend keeping the
| >> hard drive first, and changing the boot order to floppy
first or CD
| >> first (temporarily) only when you need to boot from one
of those
| >> devices (which should be very rare these days).
| >>
| >> --
| >> Ken Blake - Microsoft MVP Windows: Shell/User
| >> Please reply to the newsgroup
|
|
 
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