ed@iitmax.IIT.EDU (Ed Federmeyer) (10/26/89)
Can you have more than one hard disk controller in one IBM PC/XT clone? What I have in mind is to buy a <real cheap> 5 or 10Mb MFM hard drive (no snickers please...) and controller kit. Eventually I'll be able to afford a 30Mb RLL drive, and it would be nice if I didn't have to trash the small drive. An extra coupla meg never hurt anyone! :-) Since the drives would be different types (MFM vs. RLL), would the controllers be able to work in a single system without conflict? Will I be able to select which drive is C and which is D? And further... will I be able to set up my system in such a way as to boot from drive D? (In other words, can I select via FDISK (or something similar) not only the active partition on a disk, but which whole DISK is active? (Maybe I would set no active partition on C, and make a partion on D be active, then the XT would search the drives in order until it finds the active partition on D??? Is this the right idea, or is there a better way?) Thanks, Ed Federmeyer -- //==========================================================================\\ || Ed Federmeyer || UUCP: ed@iitMax.iit.edu || || "Unauthorized access is || Bitnet: sysed@iitVax || || strictly unauthorized." || Office: (312) 567-5981 || \\==========================================================================//
jwbirdsa@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (James Webster Birdsall) (10/31/89)
In article <2893@iitmax.IIT.EDU> ed@iitmax.iit.edu (Ed Federmeyer) writes: >Can you have more than one hard disk controller in one IBM PC/XT clone? >What I have in mind is to buy a <real cheap> 5 or 10Mb MFM hard drive (no >snickers please...) and controller kit. Eventually I'll be able to afford >a 30Mb RLL drive, and it would be nice if I didn't have to trash the small >drive. An extra coupla meg never hurt anyone! :-) ---------------------------------------------- You can say that again! >Since the drives would be different types (MFM vs. RLL), would the controllers >be able to work in a single system without conflict? >Thanks, Ed Federmeyer If your RLL drive is a Plus Hardcard, then you'd almost certainly be OK. They are designed to work with other controllers. I don't know about their new ones, but even the old ones would work with a standard-issue MFM controller. But not RLL! WARNING TO EVERYBODY: if you like your hardware to run smoothly, DO NOT -- REPEAT, DO NOT -- try to put two RLL controllers in the same machine. I have a WD RLL controller running a Seagate 238R in the same machine as an old 10-meg Plus Hardcard (I keep the Hardcard because I need the space and it's the most reliable drive I have). I have, after much experimentation, gotten them to mostly work together OK. They only try to kill each other every full moon or so. :-) I had to partition the Seagate into partitions the same size as the Hardcard, because every time I tried to write to a sector that does exist on the Seagate but doesn't on the Hardcard, I got a write error. And the Hardcard's controller still occasionally runs the Seagate's head into the stopper (every other full moon or so). The Hardcard runs fine no matter what and the Seagate works when it's alone, but the twain sure don't like each other. To summarize: RLL controllers don't coexist peacefully. -- James W. Birdsall jwbirdsa@phoenix.Princeton.EDU jwbirdsa@pucc.BITNET ...allegra!princeton!phoenix!jwbirdsa Compu$erve: 71261,1731 "For it is the doom of men that they forget." -- Merlin