berg@cip-s02.informatik.rwth-aachen.de (SRB) (04/11/90)
Hopefully someone can provide some information on the following subject:
I installed a WD1006 RLL 1:1 (track buffer) winchester controller. Ever
since I did that I get a "drive C: time out error" every once in a while;
but when I subsequently answer "retry" to the "Abort,Retry,Ignore" question
the error doesn't reoccur (most of the time, that is).
Now, I suspect that this is what happens: there might be some hard-or soft
error on a particular sector; somehow, in conjuntion with the track buffer,
the controller doesn't do a "proper" retry. The question now is, why doesn't
do a proper retry? Has it got to do something with my BIOS (AMI 1986; by the
way, I have a 12MHz AT-clone). That however seems highly unlikely, because
I thought the WD1006 is register compatible with the standard MFM harddisk
controller (is it really, I'm only guessing about this, can someone clarify
on this?).
Therefore, could someone point out where I could obtain more information on
the WD1006 (or could e-mail me some sort of a register-usage-summary on the
subject).
Any help on the subject is greatly appreciated, after all, if you can't trust
its harddisk, what can you trust :-)
--
Sincerely, | berg@cip-s01.informatik.rwth-aachen.de
Stephen R. van den Berg | ...!uunet!mcsun!unido!rwthinf!cip-s01!berg