ugthomps@cs.Buffalo.EDU (Gregory Thompson) (02/17/89)
Greetings,
I am installing a new ST277R drive in an IBM PC with a WD1002-27X controller.
I was informed by the person who gave me this small project that the controller
was already properly configured, and all I needed to do was do the drive
installation per the manual.
This has not worked. A) The drive makes a HIDEOUS noise when it starts up
(sounds like a carpenter with a hammer) B) when doing a low level format
the disk manager that came with the drive seems to want to believe that
the drive has 1024 cylinders, instead of the 820 it actually has.
C) all efforts have pretty much failed. Yes I used debug as well.
I told the person I would like to see the controller card manual.
He trotted off for a day and came back with a manual for a WD1002A-27X
vice WD1002-27X. Needless to say I am quite frustrated.
Cables are all correctly in place. Power cable is in fine as well.
Terminator resistor pack is fine (near as I can tell). Drive select
is correct. I've pretty much elimated everything except the controller
card. Does anyone has ANY ideas??? Any help on this would be GREATLY
appreciated.
- Gjborza%burgundy@Sun.COM (Jim_Borza) (02/18/89)
In article <4263@cs.Buffalo.EDU>, ugthomps@cs.Buffalo.EDU (Gregory Thompson) writes: > I am installing a new ST277R drive in an IBM PC with a WD1002-27X controller. > [...] > > This has not worked. A) The drive makes a HIDEOUS noise when it starts up > (sounds like a carpenter with a hammer) B) when doing a low level format > the disk manager that came with the drive seems to want to believe that > the drive has 1024 cylinders, instead of the 820 it actually has. > C) all efforts have pretty much failed. Yes I used debug as well. > [...] > Cables are all correctly in place. Power cable is in fine as well. > Terminator resistor pack is fine (near as I can tell). Drive select > is correct. I've pretty much elimated everything except the controller > card. Does anyone has ANY ideas??? Any help on this would be GREATLY > appreciated. The difference in the number of cylinders comes from a characteristic of Western Digital RLL controllers. Many of them (all?) do a translation in ROM to make the drive look as if it still contains 17 sectors/track by re-mapping the addresses. If the drive has 820 cyls, the W-D should map it to 1254 cylinders. Unfortunately, DOS's 1024 limit causes you to lose some cylinders. The need to maintain the fiction of 17 sec/trk is, for the most part, obselete. As to the noise, many Seagate drives are noisy critters - many run for years clanking, growling and whining while others quietly die. If the 277 is a stepper-motor drive, it's normal for the stepper assemblies to be noiser than voice-coil designs. Before you con- sider the drive defective, let the W-D remap the cylinders and see if you can format the drive and run with it. Chances are the noises are "normal" (but no guarantees, of course). Jim Borza - Sun Microsystems Disclaimer? Sure, why not?