bartling@dvorak.amd.com (Steve Bartling) (12/10/90)
Hello, This probably falls in the category of 'frequently asked questions' so I am probably going to waste some net bandwidth. That having been said, here is my question : How do you install ESDI and MFM drives in the same system ? I currently own a Western Digital ESDI Dual HD/FD controller ( WD1007A-WA2) and a seagate ST2106E 90 MB ESDI drive ( equivalent to the CDC Wren III 1/2 height 90 MB ESDI drive ). I also own a seagate ST4096 80 MB MFM hard disk and a no-name ( MORSE ) Dual HD/FD 1:1 MFM controller. I would like for these to peacefully coexist in the same system. My current level of understanding is that I will need to replace the MORSE controller with a 1:1 MFM HD controller that has the following features : 1) Relocateable I/O address 2) Selectable IRQ ( IRQ 14 or IRQ 15 ) Are there any other required features ? Does anyone have a recommendation for a 1:1 MFM HD controller that meets the above requirements ? I have a second question relating to my BIOS : I have a recent vintage PHOENIX BIOS that I am using on a 386 20 MHZ clone motherboard ( VIP ). Will this bios recognize and take advantage of a secondary disk drive with a relocated I/O address ? How do I get DOS to recognize and use the secondary drive ? Thanks for your help, Steve Bartling email : bartling@dvorak.amd.com P.S. please reply by email, I don't always have time to read this newsgroup regularly.
dhesi%cirrusl@oliveb.ATC.olivetti.com (Rahul Dhesi) (12/11/90)
>How do you install ESDI and MFM drives in the same system ?
Couldn't you just buy an ESDI drive and controller combination that
uses MFM encoding? Then you would have both ESDI and MFM in the same
system.
--
Rahul Dhesi <dhesi%cirrusl@oliveb.ATC.olivetti.com>
UUCP: oliveb!cirrusl!dhesi
kaleb@thyme.jpl.nasa.gov (Kaleb Keithley ) (12/11/90)
In article <2794@cirrusl.UUCP> dhesi%cirrusl@oliveb.ATC.olivetti.com (Rahul Dhesi) writes: >>How do you install ESDI and MFM drives in the same system ? > >Couldn't you just buy an ESDI drive and controller combination that >uses MFM encoding? Then you would have both ESDI and MFM in the same >system. Most (all) MFM and RLL drive/controllers actually use the ST506 protocol. ESDI, and SCSI are alternative protocols. With ESDI and SCSI the data encoding scheme (MFM, RLL, ARLL, etc.) is transparent to the protocol. I think the original question meant how do you install a mixture of ST506 (MFM) and ESDI controller/hard disks into the same system. Since I haven't tried it personally, I'm reluctant to say it can or can't be done. But since many ST506 controllers have a jumper to set it as the secondary controller, I think that it may be possible to do it in this manner. Caveat Emptor. -- Kaleb Keithley Jet Propulsion Labs kaleb@thyme.jpl.nasa.gov You can please all of the people some of the time,