lc@tcom.stc.co.uk (Laurie Constantin) (09/29/89)
Does anyone know if track 0 cylinder 0 on a winchester disk drive has any significance? I'm asking this because we have a tool (written in pascal86) to run on a 310 box that formats brand new hard disks. When a new winni is delivered the manufacturer supplies a listing of all the bad tracks for that disk, and the tool we use takes this bad track info and stores it in the relevant place on the disk. The problem we had with one disk was that the manufacturer said track 0 cylinder 0 was a bad track - so we enter it via our tool. When a 'rqa$get$file$status' bios system call is issued from within pascal86 the 'dev$name' return parameter (the name of the hard disk) is blank. However, if the track 0 cylinder 0 info is ignored from the list then the device name is accessible. Any ideas would be welcome for this not-so-urgent problem. -- ====================================================================== | + +--- | lc@bute.Tcom.STC.co.UK Phone:(+44) 01 945 3066 | | / L / C | Laurie Constantin, Dept 30820, STC plc, | | +---- +--- | New Southgate, London N11 1HB, England. |
kunkee@ficc.uu.net (randy kunkee XNX MGR) (10/07/89)
In article <1798@bute.tcom.stc.co.uk>, lc@tcom.stc.co.uk (Laurie Constantin) writes: > > Does anyone know if track 0 cylinder 0 on a winchester disk drive has any > significance? > : You are referring to a 310 running (I think) RMX? We use Xenix R3.5 here, but the following should apply: You should send back any disk you get that has cylinder 0 track 0 listed as defective. The first 3 tracks on the drive are supposed to be guaranteed to be defect free. The first track contains information on the geometry of the disk (cylinders, tracks, sectors) as well as the bootstrap used to load in your operating system. If this information is not correct, none of the Intel (214, 215, 221) or look-alike controllers (SMS 8009) will drive the disk (although I think this is more of an operating system issue than the actual controller). The bootstrap is only necessary if you intend to boot from the disk (NNO - Not Necessarily Obvious). -- Randy Kunkee Ferranti International Controls Corporation 12808 W. Airport Blvd. Sugar Land, TX 77478 UUCP: uunet!ficc!kunkee ph: (713) 274-5132