SCSI Hard Disks

If your SCSI controller can be configured to perform translation, you can create a boot partition or system partition that is within the first 1 or 4 GB of the disk, depending upon the translation used by the controller. To create the largest possible system and boot partitions, you need to enable translation on the controller. If translation was not already enabled, you will need to low-level format the hard disk, recreate partitions, and format them. Check with your hardware manufacturer for specific advice and details.

Once Windows NT has been initialized, it uses its SCSI disk device drivers to directly interact with the disk without using the BIOS INT 13 interface. Therefore, the Starting and Ending Head, Sector, and Cylinder fields are not important after the computer has completed startup.

Note

If you are using, or going to use, a mirror set for your system partition, there are reasons that you should not enable translation on the controller. See Chapter 5, "Preparing for and Performing Recovery," for more information.