walt@brahms.udel.edu (Walter M Dabell) (06/20/91)
I picked up a known working MFM drive at a flea market. The paperwork that came with the drive said the drive was compatible with MFM or RLL. I was suspicious, but tried formating it with an RLL controller anyway. I now suspect that the drive has two versions, one of each format. The drive doesn't work with the RLL controller. I tried to re-format the drive with an MFM controller and now the drive doesn't work on MFM either. The formatter I am using is the debug callable one on the WD controller. Anybody know of a way to get the thing working with the MFM controller again? walt@delocn.udel.edu
schuster@panix.uucp (Michael Schuster) (06/21/91)
In article <22251@brahms.udel.edu> walt@brahms.udel.edu (Walter M Dabell) writes: > >I picked up a known working MFM drive at a flea market. The paperwork >that came with the drive said the drive was compatible with MFM or RLL. >I was suspicious, but tried formating it with an RLL controller anyway. >I now suspect that the drive has two versions, one of each format. The >drive doesn't work with the RLL controller. I tried to re-format the >drive with an MFM controller and now the drive doesn't work on MFM >either. The formatter I am using is the debug callable one on the WD >controller. Anybody know of a way to get the thing working with the >MFM controller again? Re-format it with a different MFM controller. The WD controller is brain-damaged; this is precisely why Seagate had the policy of invalidating the warranty on non-certified MFM drives that people tried to format using an RLL controller. They didn't want to have to deal with other people's finicky format routines. -- Mike Schuster | -CIS: 70346,1745 -NY Public Access UNIX: schuster@panix.com | -MCI Mail, GENIE: -The Portal (R) System: schuster@cup.portal.com | MSCHUSTER