[ The PC Guide | Systems and Components Reference Guide | Motherboard and System Devices | System BIOS | BIOS Settings | IDE Device Setup / Autodetection ]

Block Mode

When enabled, allows the system to perform accesses to the hard disk in block mode. What this means is that more than one sector can be transferred on each interrupt; newer drives allow you to transfer as many as 16 or 32 sectors at a time. This greatly improves performance when you use multitasking operating systems such as Windows 95 or Windows NT, since the processor is "distracted" from its other work much less often.

Normally you will want to enable this setting if your hard disk is compatible. Disable it if you experience lockups or problems with your hard disk or other peripherals.

Note: IDE autodetection will set this value automatically on most BIOSes, but on some this must be manually set; the autodetection won't do it.

Note: On some BIOSes this setting is actually in the Integrated Peripherals section. Weird.

Next: PIO Mode

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