Caviar Series 
Installation and Setup Information 
WDAC280/WDAC2120/WDAC1170/WDAC2170/WDAC2200/WDAC1210/WDAC2250 
WDAC1270/WDAC2340/WDAC2420/WDAC2540/WDAC2700/WDAC31000 
 
80, 120, 170, 200, 212, 250, 270, 340, 420, 540, 730, and 1080 Megabyte 
3.5-Inch Disk Drives 
 
Setting the Drive Jumpers 
The Caviar drive has a jumper block (J8) located next to the 40-pin connector on the drive. These  
jumpers select options on the hard drive.The Caviar drive is factory set for a single drive installation. 
All new Caviar drives are shipped with a jumper shunt in the neutral storage position (across pins 5 and  
3) for future dual drive use. 
If you are installing the Caviar drive as the only IDE drive in your system, leave the jumper shunt in the  
neutral storage position. Jumper shunts are not required for single drive installations. 
In dual drive installations, jumper shunts are needed to designate which drive is master and which is  
slave. 
**Refer to Figure 1 for an illustration of all jumper settings. 
 
If you have a dual installation (two IDE drives), you must designate one of the drives as the master and  
the other as the slave. The jumper pins on block J8 need to be configured for the dual installation. 
For your other drive, consult its installation guide for master/slave configuration. 
To designate the Caviar drive as the master, place a jumper shunt across pins 5-6. 
To designate the Caviar drive as the slave, place a jumper shunt across pins 3-4. 
To install a jumper shunt on the J8 jumper pins: 
1. 
**Refer to the previous descriptions and Figure 1 to determine your configuration. 
2. 
**Carefully place the shunt over the two pins specified in Figure 1. 
3. 
Push the shunt into place until it is flush against the base of the jumper block. 
Note: Designation of a drive as either master or slave is determined by jumper configuration, not by the  
order in which it is daisy-chained to the other drive. 
Preparing the Caviar Drive for Use 
Your Caviar drive has been low-level formatted. The hard drive is ready to set up and is defect-free.  
The drive must be partitioned and high-level formatted so it can accept files. This section provides  
guidelines for preparing your drive. Consult your operating system documentation for complete  
information on preparing the drive for use with your operating system. 
The computer system provides an initial setup utility which you access with a series of keystrokes or run  
from a floppy diskette. System setup procedures vary from system to system, but each setup procedure  
allows you to tell the system what type of hardware you are using. Follow the setup instructions in your  
computer system manual. 
One step in the setup procedure asks you to specify the type of hard drive used in your system. 
There is no standard drive type for these Caviar drives. Use the setup utility to examine the available  
drive tables. 
Choose a drive type that comes as close as possible to the recommended parameters listed in Table 1. 
Drive			Recommended Parameters	Maximum Total Sectors 
Caviar AC280 **		980 x 10 x 17			166,628 ** 
Caviar AC2120 **	872 x 8 x 35			244,182 ** 
Caviar AC1170		1010 x 6 x 55			333,300 
Caviar CA2170 **	1010 x 6 x 55			333,300 ** 
Caviar AC2200 **	989 x 12 x 35			415,408 ** 
Caviar AC1210		989 x 12 x 35			415,380 
Caviar AC2250		1010 x 9 x 55			499,950 
Caviar AC1270		917 x 12 x 48			528,192 
Caviar AC2340		1010 x 12 x 55			666,600 
Caviar AC2420		989 x 15 x 56			830,760 
Caviar AC2540		1048 x 16 x 63			1,056,384 
Caviar AC2700		1416 x 16 x 63			1,427,328 
Caviar AC31000		2100 x 16 x 63			2,116,800 
 
* The parameters shown are in order of cylinders,, heads,, and maximum sectors per track., +, + 
**  The total sectors for these drives are not the product of the recommended parameters. 
 
 
Do not exceed the "total sectors" as shown in Table 1 above. 
The system Basic Input/Output System (BIOS)  may request values for write precompensation and  
landing zone. Refer to Table 1 or the drive label for cylinder, head, sector information. The CMOS  
precompensation and landing zone values should be set to the number of cylinders. See your system  
manual for BIOS restrictions. The drive's controller electronics eliminate the need to specify these  
parameters and will ignore this information. 
To calculate the number of sectors a drive type supplies, multiply the number of cylinders by the number  
of heads by the number of sectors on each track. For example, a drive type with 1010 cylinders, 6 heads,  
and 55 sectors supplies 333,300 sectors (1010 by 6 by 55). Use the values for cylinders, heads and sectors  
shown in Table 1. 
Note to AC2540, AC2700, and AC31000 Users 
The capacities on these drives exceed a 528 Mbyte capacity system BIOS limitation that exists on some  
older computer systems. These drives are shipped with Ontrack's Disk Manager software, which allows  
your drive to break the BIOS barrier and use its full capacity for DOS and Windows applications. For  
information on using this software, see the Caviar Series AC2540, AC2700, and AC31000 Quick  
Installation Guide which comes with these drives. 
The following section explains the 528 Mbyte limitation in more detail. 
At this time, the DOS/BIOS limitation for maximum allowable usable drive size is 528 Mbytes (1024  
cylinders by 16 heads by 63 sectors per track and 512 bytes per sector). Many systems with AUTO setup  
options for drive type selection make use of the Identify Drive command to automatically determine the  
number of cylinders, heads, and sectors per track. The AC2540, AC2700, and AC31000, due to their  
large size, return default cylinder counts that are greater than the DOS limitation of 1024 cylinders. Many  
systems truncate this to 1024 cylinders to achieve the maximum usable disk space under DOS (528  
Mbytes). 
Other systems, which did not anticipate drives with capacities greater than 528 Mbytes will truncate to  
much lower cylinder counts, giving you much less than 528 Mbytes. This usually can be resolved by  
entering your CMOS system setup and selecting USER DEFINED rather than AUTO drive types on  
systems that have these options. Using the USER DEFINED settings, you can manually specify 1024  
cylinders, 16 heads, and 63 sectors per track, which gives you 528 Mybtes of usable disk space. 
Many newer systems are capable of using the full capacity of these drives using a translate BIOS. A  
translate BIOS alters the drive parameters reported to DOS, so that the cylinder count is within the 1024  
cylinder limitation. This is usually done by increasing the number of heads seen by DOS and  
correspondingly reducing the cylinder count. 
For example, on the AC2540 drive, a translate BIOS sets the parameters of the drive to the full 1048  
cylinders by 16 heads by 63 sectors per track, but presents a drive to DOS as 524 cylinders by 32 heads  
by 63 sectors per track. 
Using the full capacity of the AC2540, AC2700, and AC31000 drives on a DOS based system requires  
either a translate BIOS or a software driver, such as Ontrack's Disk Manager, that emulates a translate  
BIOS. 
Partitioning the Drive 
Your version of DOS determines how you partition your disk(s). 
MS DOS and PC DOS versions 5.0 and later automatically partition and format the drive during DOS  
installation, without requiring you to manually run the FDISK and Format utilities. 
If you have an MS DOS version earlier than 3.3, you can only address 32 Mbytes maximum on your  
drive. You cannot partition the drive without third party software. We recommend you upgrade to MS  
DOS 3.3 or above. 
If you have MS DOS version 3.3, DOS allows you to partition larger drives into logical disk drives with a  
maximum of 32 Mbytes per partition. 
If you are working with MS DOS version 3.31 or greater, you can partition a disk drive to the maximum  
size of the drive. You are not limited to 32 Mbytes. 
Some non-Microsoft versions of DOS may allow larger partitions than those mentioned here.  
FDISK.COM automatically assigns drive IDs to the partitions. Refer to your operating system manual for  
more information on partitioning drives. 
You only need to manually partition your drive(s) to overcome the limitations of your MS DOS version.  
Partitioning allows you to divide your disk into multiple partitions, which function as separate disk  
drives. Use the MS DOS FDISK.COM utility to display a series of menus that help you partition your  
hard disk for MS DOS. 
A brief set of instructions follows. 
To partition your IDE hard drive: 
1. 
Insert your MS DOS system diskette into drive A. 
2. 
Reboot the system by simultaneously pressing [CTRL], [ALT], and [DEL]. Make sure the MS DOS  
diskette with FDISK.COM (located on the diskette) is inserted in Drive A . 
3. 
 Type FDISK at the A: prompt. 
4. 
Press the [Enter] key. 
5. 
Follow the default options. For more information, refer to your MS DOS manual. 
MS DOS versions 3.3 and higher allow you to create a primary partition, create an extended partition,  
change the active partition, delete a partition, and display partition data.  
Formatting the Drive 
Replacing an Existing (Single) Drive 
You only need to manually format your drive when you have an older version of DOS as mentioned in  
the previous section. 
Newer versions of DOS automatically format during DOS installation.  You do not need to perform a  
low-level format. 
Adding the Caviar as a Second Hard Disk Drive 
You always need to use FDISK and FORMAT  utilities on the second hard disk. 
When using FDISK, make sure that you have selected the second drive. Do not delete any partitions that  
already exist on the first drive. Doing so will result in lost data. 
When using FORMAT, make sure that you select the proper drive letter in the FORMAT command line.  
Format the next drive letter after your last existing partition. Formatting a partition that already  
contains data will result in the loss of that data. 
If you designated other drives or partitions during the FDISK.COM routine, you must format those drives  
as well. 
For example, type FORMAT D: at the A: prompt and then press [Enter]. Continue the format process  
until you have formatted all drives. When the formatting process is complete, copy all DOS files from the  
floppy onto your hard drive. For more information on formatting, refer to your operating system  
documentation. 
Booting the System 
After you have properly formatted your drive(s) and copied the operating system, you are ready to use the  
computer. Boot the system from the active operating system drive, usually C.  Be sure to remove any  
diskettes from drive A before booting. To boot the system: 
1. 
Simultaneously press [CTRL], [ALT], and [DEL]. 
2. 
The system should respond, and the monitor should display C> after you have entered the current date  
and time. 
Refer to your system documentation for more information on booting the system.  
If the system will not boot, or if you are unable to access the new drive, refer to your operating system  
documentation. Verify that you ran the system utilities correctly, specified the correct drive tables,  
designated an active partition, and partitioned and formatted the hard disk correctly. If your system still  
won't boot, you may have improperly installed or connected the drive. Refer to the Troubleshooting   
section of this document for more information. 
Using the Drive 
It is extremely important to regularly back up the data on your hard disk. Data can be damaged or lost  
due to a number of unanticipated factors.  
Consult your operating system documentation for back-up instructions and procedures. 
Troubleshooting 
This section lists procedures to resolve problems you may encounter when installing the Caviar drive. 
Refer to your system documentation to be sure that you followed the setup procedures correctly. 
Make sure that you partitioned and formatted the IDE drive and any additional drive with the DOS  
FDISK.COM and FORMAT.COM utilities. (If you are making this disk bootable, remember to specify  
the /S parameter.) Refer to your operating system documentation to check these procedures. 
If using DOS 3.3 and above, be certain to make one partition active during FDISK. 
Check the physical installation of your system. Make sure: 
The jumper selections on the drive are correct for your installation. 
The cables are correctly connected and seated. 
The adapter card, if installed, is properly seated, connected, and configured. 
Power is properly connected to your system and the system is plugged in. 
There is not an ST506 AT controller in the system. Another 16-bit (AT) hard disk controller cannot be  
used in the same system as the Caviar drive. 
 
A short list of commonly asked questions along with their solutions follows. 
Q.  What is a megabyte? 
A:  Hard drive suppliers define a decimal megabyte as 1,000,000 bytes  (106 ). Alternatively, a binary  
megabyte is defined as 1,048,576 (220 ). This is why different utilities will display different numbers of  
megabytes available for the same drive. The values in Table 2 below are determined by defining a  
megabyte as follows: 
Capacity		Megabytes 
CMOS (Mbytes)		binary megabytes 
CHKDSK (Mbytes)	decimal megabytes 
 
DRIVE, 280, 2120, 1170, 2170, 2200, 1210, 2250, 1270, 2340, 2420, 2540, 2700, 31000 
 
Capacity, 85.3, 125, 170.6, 170.6, 212.6, 212.6, 256.0, 270.4, 341.3, 425.3, 540.8, 730.8, 1083.8 
 
CMOS 
(Mbytes), 81, 119, 162, 162, 202, 202, 239, 257, 325, 405, 515, 696, 1033 
 
CHKDSK 
(Mbytes), 85.3, 125, 170.6, 170.6, 212.6, 212.6, 256.0, 270.4, 341.3, 425.3, 540.8, 730.8, 1083.8 
 
 
Q.  Will your hard drive work in my system? 
A:  If your computer is 100% IBM AT compatible and has either a 40-pin AT IDE interface on the  
motherboard or a 16-bit IDE host adapter and slot available, Caviar drives are compatible. 
Q: Do I have to do anything to my original hard drive when adding yours to it? 
A: Yes, one hard drive must be designated as a master, and the other as a slave. Consult your original  
hard drive's documentation for master/slave jumper positions. 
Q:  I installed my hard drive and the system does not see it. Why? 
A:  Before the hard drive can be recognized, it must be set up properly in CMOS, partitioned via the  
operating system FDISK utility, and high-level formatted via the operating system FORMAT utility. 
Q:  What should I check if my system will not start after I turn the power on? 
 
A:  Ensure that: 
1. 
The IDE controller card, if installed, is properly seated and connected. 
2. 
The connections at both ends of the hard drive cable are secure and correctly oriented. 
3. 
The jumper selections on your hard drive(s) are correctly set for your installation. 
Q:  I can't boot DOS from my newly installed hard drive or access the hard drive after I've completed the  
software installation. 
A:  Check the system to make sure: 
1. 
You entered the correct hard drive parameters during your system setup procedure. 
2. 
You correctly partitioned (via the operating system FDISK utility), and formatted (via the operating  
system FORMAT utility) your newly installed hard drive. 
3. 
You made your primary drive bootable (formatted with /S option). 
4. 
During the FDISK procedure you marked your bootable partition active. 
Q:  I don't see the full capacity of my AC2540/AC2700/AC31000 hard drive when installing DOS. I am  
limited to a 528-Mbyte partition. 
A:  Most system BIOSs don't support drives greater than 528 Mbytes. Install Ontrack Disk Manager to  
overcome this limitation. 
 
Q:  The reported capacity of my AC2540/ AC2700/AC31000 hard drive is MUCH smaller than expected. 
A:  Your system BIOS improperly handles hard drives that report greater than 1024 cylinders. Install  
Ontrack Disk Manager to get the full capacity of your drive. 
Q:  I get the message "HDD Controller Failure" after installing my Western Digital hard drive. 
A:  This may occur when you first boot the system after installing the hard drive. Retrace the steps  
outlined for CMOS setup, cabling, and jumper configuration. Make sure these instructions have been  
performed correctly. 
Then follow the instructions for using  FDISK and FORMAT or if you have an AC2540, AC2700, or  
AC31000 use the Ontrack Disk Manager to install the operating system. 
Q:  Novell or Unix won't install correctly on my AC2540, AC2700, or AC31000. 
A:  Check the BIOS setup. Novell and Unix will not install if  >16 heads are defined in CMOS. You must  
use the "User Defined" drive type. Do not use the "Auto Config" drive type. 
Q:  During installation of OS/2 on my AC2540, AC2700, or AC31000, I get a red screen with the message  
"INSTALL ERROR." What do I do? 
A:  OS/2 does not support bootable partitions in excess of 503 CMOS Mbytes for most systems with an  
older BIOS. If you try to set up your system this way, you will get a red screen with the message  
"INSTALL ERROR" early in the installation process. 
1. 
Delete the non-DOS partition and create a bootable partition: 
A.  Use a bootable DOS diskette  (Version 5.0 or above) containing the DOS version of FDISK. 
B.  Run FDISK and delete non-DOS partition. 
C.  Restart the system with an OS/2 boot disk. 
2. 
Define the boot partition to be 503 CMOS Mbytes or less. 
3. 
Define the remaining unpartitioned disk space as "extended." 
4. 
Save the new partition information and continue installation. 
5. 
If any partition has more than 1024 cylinders, format with HPFS file system. 
Q:  What is the warranty period on your hard drives? 
A:  All new 3.5-inch Western Digital hard drives have a 3-year warranty. 
Q:  What is the size of my hard drive's cache buffer? 
A:  The model number is located on the hard drive (MDL #). The last letter signifies the cache size in  
kilobytes. 
For example:  WDAC2540-00H (H=128K) 
M = 32K,   F = 64K,   H = 128K 
Q.  I've read the entire Troubleshooting section and I still cannot correctly install my drive. 
A.  If none of the solutions presented in this section are solving your problem there are two other options  
available: 1) contact your dealer, or 2) contact Western Digital Technical Support. If you are using the 
Ontrack Disk Manager, have the diskette available when you call. 
If you are installing your new Western Digital hard drive with a non-Western Digital hard drive you may  
have to contact the manufacturer for master/slave jumper configuration information. 
 
As of the date of this publication the phone numbers are: 
Conner		408-456-3200 
IBM		914-765-1900 
Maxtor		408-432-1700 
Quantum	408-894-4000 
Seagate		408-438-8222 
 
If you have further questions, contact your dealer or Western Digital Technical Support at (714) 932- 
4900. If you have a Hayes-compatible modem (2,400 to 14,400 baud), you can access the Western  
Digital Bulletin Board at (714) 753-1234. The format is 8 data bits, 1 stop bit, no parity. 
 
Western Digital Corporation 
8105 Irvine Center Drive 
Irvine, California 92718 
(714) 932-4900 
Copyright c 1994 Western Digital Corporation. All rights reserved. 
Western Digital and Caviar are registered trademarks and FIT Lab and Hyperseek are trademarks of  
Western Digital Corporation. Other marks may be mentioned herein that belong to other companies. 
S0888      9/94 
