twg0214@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (09/04/90)
I use the 4766 disk in my Gataway 386/33MHz system with the Ultrastor controller. It gave me a lot of pain. My system arrived at the beginning of May this year. The disk did not spin until I switched the computer on and of 5 times. Then it worked just fine. The replacement disk was better, it spinned after 4 cycles of switching. The third one which looked slightly redesigned started fine the first time. During low-level format, the disk has many defects, perhaps it is normal for a disk with 8 platters. I use this disk with OS/2 and DOS 4.01. Under DOS and using the controller provided sector and cylinder translation, all disk space can be utilized even in a single partition. Under OS/2, there is a 1024 cylinder limitation and you can use only 528 Mbytes out of about 668. My Ultrastor manual warns that the cylinder limit is also present in UNIX i386 systems. I have heard that it is also bulit into some BIOS (AMI?) routines. The disk takes plenty of power, especially at the start-up. Having two replacement disk, I tries to run two disks , having over 1.3 Gbyte on line. It did not work reliably perhaps because my 220 W power supply was too weak. Ignacy Misztal Bitnet: ignacy@uiucvmd.bitnet Internet: ignacy@uiuc.edu