jarmon@b8.UUCP (Don Jarmon) (03/16/89)
I need some help with installing a Maxtor ESDI Disk Drive into a Wyse pc386. The controller is Western Digitial's WD1007A-WA2 and the Disk Drive is a Maxtor Model XT4170E 175mb. The Rom-BIOS is Pheonix v3.52. I think the drive has 7 heads and 1224 cylinders. The Wyse v1.07 setup program does not list a drive with these specs. Neither does Speedstor version 5.00c. There will be MS-DOS v3.3 available when everthing is installed and working. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Don "I don't have a fancy signature" Jarmon ...uunet!ingr!b8!dj4104!don (UUCP) b8!dj4104!don@ingr.com (INTERNET) =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
samc@hpccc.HP.COM (Samuel Chau) (03/23/89)
/ hpccc:comp.sys.ibm.pc / jarmon@b8.UUCP (Don Jarmon) / 3:58 am Mar 16, 1989 / > I need some help with installing a Maxtor ESDI Disk Drive into > a Wyse pc386. > > The controller is Western Digitial's WD1007A-WA2 and the > Disk Drive is a Maxtor Model XT4170E 175mb. The Rom-BIOS > is Pheonix v3.52. I think the drive has 7 heads and 1224 > cylinders. The Wyse v1.07 setup program does not list a > drive with these specs. Neither does Speedstor version > 5.00c. There will be MS-DOS v3.3 available when everthing > is installed and working. > Don "I don't have a fancy signature" Jarmon If the WD1007A-WA2 board has a BIOS ROM on it, you can use it to configure and low-level format the Maxtor. Just run DEBUG and type g=c800:5 to enter the WD format utility resident in the BIOS. If there is no BIOS ROM on the controller (which is exactly the problem I ran into a few weeks ago), you must then use the BIOS on the motherboard to set the drive type. Unfortunately, almost no BIOS ROMs include ESDI drive entries in their hard drive parameter tables, which means you will have to modify one of the entries to custom fit your drive. This is what I did to my AMI 386 BIOS out of desperation to get my Maxtor XT-4380E running. In particular, the number of sectors per track (SPT) should be changed from the usual 17 (for ST-506 MFM) to 34 for ESDI. Also, most BIOS ROMs cannot handle more than 1024 cylinders (cylinder field is only 10 bits, extra cylinders will wrap around, not very appetizing), so if you decide to modify a drive entry in the BIOS, set it to 1024 cylinders, 7 heads, and 34 SPT. After this, you can use SpeedStor 5.00c to low-level format the drive, or use Western Digital's WDFMT 2.10 (available for downloading from their support BBS: (714) 756-8176 ). Then use DOS 3.3 FDISK and FORMAT to finish up. Hope this helps. If you need more details in "ROM hacking", send me e-mail. Sam Chau HP Cupertino (408) 447-0238 samc@hpda Disclaimer: The above does not represent the views of Hewlett-Packard, only my own.