INSTALLING A SECONDARY HARD DRIVE IN THE EXPANSION UNITS OF THE NEC LAPTOPS. The following is a step by step instruction list, the items that are needed is full documentation of the hard drive controller and hard drive, also the DOS debug utility. COMMENTS: First of all, let's clarify what hardware is needed to implement a hard drive in an expansion unit. The hard drive controller that is needed must be capable of being a secondary controller. Controllers of this sort are "XT" controllers, or a SCSI interface controller. Below you will find a listing of HD controllers that spec out and should be compatible. As for the hard drive, the drive should be compatible with the selected controller. This is information that should be supplied by the manufacturer of the controller. The first precedure is to install the controller in the Docking Station, make sure the controller is configured to be the secondary controller and that the BIOS address is set to CA000-CBFFFH. The configuration of the controller is simple and should be explained in the manual of the selected controller. The second step is to install the Hard Drive into the drive bay of the Docking Station, the cables should be connected between the controller and the hard drive. (Making sure the pin 1 is connected to pin 1) Also the power cord should be connected as well as the ground cable, both these cable are provided in the Docking Station. The third step is to boot the machine and run the DOS utility "DEBUG", after executing DEBUG there should appear a hyphen "-". At the hyphen the user should input the following: I. -g=CA00:5 What this command does is accesses the ROM BIOS on the Hard Drive controller, the user will then be able to proceed with low level formatting the Hard Disk. II. The following should appear on the screen depending on the controller: Current Controller is Drive C:, Select new drive or RETURN for current. The user should then input the letter D and press enter. This is to select the next fixed drive to be the D: Drive. III. The message will then appear: Current Interleave is 3; Select new Interleave or press RETURN for current. The user should select the correct interleave according to their Hard Drive. Interleave is a technique that allows the computer to read or write more than one sector per track during a single rotation. Example: An interleave factor of 3:1 means that after the disk rotates 3 times, the computer has accessed all the information on a track. IV. The next message that will appear is: Are you Dynamically configuring the Hard Drive-answer Y/N If the user chooses to dynamically configure the hard drive they should answer Y to the above question and input the following information. If the user wishes not to dynamically configure the hard drive they should answer N and skip the following information. IMPORTANT NOTE: IF THE USERS DOES NOT DYNAMICALLY CONFIGURE THE MAXIMUM CAPACITY THAT THE HARD DRIVE WILL BE FORMATTED TOO IS 20 MEG. This is where the user needs the specs of the Hard Drive, such as: ccc = Cylinder size (1-4 digits) h = # of Heads (1-2 digits) rrr = starting reduced write current cylinder (1-4 digits) ppp = write precomp cylinder (1-4 digits) ee = max correctable error burst length (1-2 digits), range 5-11 bits, default is 11 bits. o = ccb option byte, step rate select, (1 hex digit), range 0-7 ,default=5 IMPORTANT: The format for this information is as follows: ccc h rrr ppp ee o EXAMPLE: Seagate hard drive model ST 225 615 4 616 300 11 7 V. If the user did dynamically configure the drive the question is then asked: Are you virtually configuring the drive- answer Y/N What is meant by virtual configuration is to divide the fixed disk drive into imaginary partitions. When you do a virtual format, you make one physical drive appear as two or more disks in the system. VERY IMPORTANT: Because there are two physical drives in the system, the Hard Drive in the portable and the Docking Station, the user must answer the above question as NO! After you answer NO to the Virtual question the next message will appear: VI. Press "y" to begin low level formatting drive D with the interleave 03 (The interleave value will vary depending on the hard drive). y Formatting... The system will then begin formatting the Drive. This will take a few minutes......... VII. After the formatting is complete the message will appear as follows: Do you want to format Bad Tracks Y/N Because a Hard Disk is a physically manufactured item, it sometimes has physical defects. Each drive manufacturer tests their drive and gives you a bad track media list, when you purchase the drive. This bad track list is usually located on the top of the disk drive case. Because of the addressing method used by DOS, marking an entire track bad results in more than one sector being marked as bad. Since DOS limits the number of defects that it accepts, a drive with excessive media defects can cause the FORMAT program to terminate with an error, "TRACK 00 BAD - DRIVE UNUSABLE" It is recommended to answer the question of formatting bad tracks as NO!!! FORMAT COMPLETE!!!! VIII. The next step is to use the DOS utility FDISK. Execute FDISK, the following will appear. CURRENT FIXED DRIVE : 1 (1) CREATE DOS PARTITION (2) CHANGE ACTIVE PARTITION (3) DELETE DOS PARTITION (4) DISPLAY PARTITION INFORMATION (5) SELECT FIXED DISK DRIVE Select 5 Notice that the message " CURRENT FIXED DRIVE : 1" will change to "CURRENT FIXED DRIVE : 2" After the current fixed drive is set to 2 then proceed with the normal operation of creating a DOS partition and extended partitions. After this is completed reboot the system and format the D: and the F: One thing that you must remember is that all FIXED DISK Drives come before any Extended Drives. This is a result of DOS. The following configuration is an example of how the system will look. EXAMPLE: Prospeed 386 with 40 Meg HARD Drive and a 40 Meg in the Docking Station. C: 32 Meg. partition in portable | |------> Both fisked disks come D: 32 Meg. partition in Docking Station | first. E: 8 Meg extended partition in the portable F: 8 Meg. extended partition in the Docking Station Once the portable is disconnected from the Docking Station the configuration returns to normal. C: 32 meg. partition D: 8 Meg. extended partiton NOTE: TO AVOID THIS PROBLEM OF VARYING HARD DRIVES SPECIFICATIONS, USE DOS 4.01. LIST OF CONTROLLERS Western Digital controllers 1. WD1002A-WX1 -- Hard drive encoding MFM 2. WD1004A-WX1 -- Hard drive encoding MFM 3. WD1002-27X -- Hard drive encoding RLL 4. WD1004-27X -- Hard drive encoding RLL 5. WDXTAT FASST -- SCSI controller