1h1a0m@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu (06/17/91)
I am using OnTracks' Disk Manager v 4.01 with a Miniscribe 8450 HD and MSDOS 3.3. I would like to try out MSDOS 5.0 but the install program tells me I have a partition on my HD and can't do it. I called OnTrack and the sales lady told me that my version of Disk Manager WILL work with MSDOS 5.0 but I need help from Tech Support. I called Tech Support (612) 937-2121 and I got a recording with some info. But then I got cut off. I was calling from work on a calling card and it gets kind of expensive to call. I was ready to buy a new version of Disk Manager but it appears that I don't need one. So, question: Has anyone received the help needed to correctly install MSDOS 5.0 with Disk Manager running on the HD? If so, could you pass that on? Thanks a lot. -- -- USmail: Antonio Montes, 4008 Learned Hall, Univ. of Kansas, Lawrence, KS 66045 E-mail: 1h1a0m@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu, 1h1a0m@ukanvax.bitnet, AT&T: (913) 864-3001
rubin@visual1.jhuapl.edu (Don Rubin) (06/18/91)
I believe if you look at a readme file on the 5th (5 1/4) floppy you will see instructions for using Disk Manager under DOS 5.0. As far as I know you don't need a new driver, the DOS 5.0 kit has one that works. Yeah, I am using it and it works fine. Hope this helps...
1h1a0m@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu (06/18/91)
In article <1991Jun17.221311.15797@aplcen.apl.jhu.edu>, rubin@visual1.jhuapl.edu (Don Rubin) writes: > I believe if you look at a readme file on the 5th (5 1/4) > floppy you will see instructions for using Disk Manager > under DOS 5.0. As far as I know you don't need a new > driver, the DOS 5.0 kit has one that works. Yeah, I am > using it and it works fine. Hope this helps... Thanks to all the folks that gave suggestions about disk manager and dos 5. It turned out that disk manager is not needed any longer. The steps I took follow: - make dos 5 bootable diskettes - boot with dos 5 in drive A: - low level format HD with debug (controller has rom in it to do that) - fdisk with dos 5 - format with dos 5 and I was set in 10 minutes. -- -- USmail: Antonio Montes, 4008 Learned Hall, Univ. of Kansas, Lawrence, KS 66045 E-mail: 1h1a0m@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu, 1h1a0m@ukanvax.bitnet, AT&T: (913) 864-3001
martell@ucs.ubc.ca (Jonn Martell) (06/20/91)
In article <1991Jun18.091756.31516@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu> 1h1a0m@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu writes: > >Thanks to all the folks that gave suggestions about disk manager and dos 5. >It turned out that disk manager is not needed any longer. The steps I took >follow: True, disk manager is not needed (and should not be used to partition hard drives for DOS 5 and for Windows 3.0) > >- make dos 5 bootable diskettes >- boot with dos 5 in drive A: >- low level format HD with debug (controller has rom in it to do that) >- fdisk with dos 5 >- format with dos 5 > You did not need to low level format you hard drive and would recommend against doing it unless you know what you are doing. You can skip step 3 above and use Fdisk (DOS 5) to delete the non-DOS partition created by disk manager.
1h1a0m@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu (06/20/91)
In article <1991Jun19.171414.24136@unixg.ubc.ca>, martell@ucs.ubc.ca (Jonn Martell) writes: > In article <1991Jun18.091756.31516@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu> 1h1a0m@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu writes: >> >>Thanks to all the folks that gave suggestions about disk manager and dos 5. >>It turned out that disk manager is not needed any longer. The steps I took >>follow: > > True, disk manager is not needed (and should not be used to partition > hard drives for DOS 5 and for Windows 3.0) > >> >>- make dos 5 bootable diskettes >>- boot with dos 5 in drive A: >>- low level format HD with debug (controller has rom in it to do that) >>- fdisk with dos 5 >>- format with dos 5 >> > You did not need to low level format you hard drive and would recommend against > doing it unless you know what you are doing. You can skip step 3 above and use > Fdisk (DOS 5) to delete the non-DOS partition created by disk manager. You're absolutely right! Low level formatting was not needed. If you'll notice, I said "the steps I took follow," not "you should follow these steps." I did low level format the HD upon the recommendation of tech support at HDI (Hard Drives International). They said low level formatting should be done every 6 months or so. It didn't hurt my HD since I knew what I was doing. I guess we could close the thread on this topic for now. -- -- USmail: Antonio Montes, 4008 Learned Hall, Univ. of Kansas, Lawrence, KS 66045 E-mail: 1h1a0m@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu, 1h1a0m@ukanvax.bitnet, AT&T: (913) 864-3001
ginsburg@cme.nist.gov (Dylan Ginsburg) (06/20/91)
In article <1991Jun19.145110.31553@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu> 1h1a0m@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu writes: > I did low level format the HD upon the recommendation of tech support at > HDI (Hard Drives International). They said low level formatting should be > done every 6 months or so. It didn't hurt my HD since I knew what I was > doing. > > I guess we could close the thread on this topic for now. Not quite, why should the drive be low level formatted every 6 months? -Dylan
esaholm@polaris.utu.fi (Esa Holmberg) (06/20/91)
martell@ucs.ubc.ca (Jonn Martell) writes: >True, disk manager is not needed (and should not be used to partition >hard drives for DOS 5 and for Windows 3.0) With DOS 4 (and prior), I have to use Disk Manager to get full use of my hard disc, as it has more cylinders than DOS 4 can understand. Has the 1024 cylinder limit finally been removed, or do I still have to stick with Disk Manager.. ?-) -- ________________________________________________________________ ) Esa Holmberg -- esaholm@utu.fi, esa.holmberg/o=ttl/@elisa.fi ) / ekho@ttl.fi, ekho@f152.n222.z2.fidonet.org / / fax : +358 21 510 017 Elisa : Holmberg Esa TTL /
1h1a0m@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu (06/20/91)
In article <GINSBURG.91Jun19164100@rio.cme.nist.gov>, ginsburg@cme.nist.gov (Dylan Ginsburg) writes: > Why should the drive be low level formatted every 6 months? > > Doug Perhaps to freshen up the track info which, unlike when writing a new file to disk, is not written over old track info. I suppose the read/write heads become misaligned with time, just a like a car goes out of tune. Doing a low level format sets everything back to zero, as if you had bought a new HD. Tony -- -- USmail: Antonio Montes, 4008 Learned Hall, Univ. of Kansas, Lawrence, KS 66045 E-mail: 1h1a0m@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu, 1h1a0m@ukanvax.bitnet, AT&T: (913) 864-3001
ace3@quads.uchicago.edu (anibal antonio acero) (06/20/91)
My RLL hard disk controller doesn't have a ROM, and my AT's BIOS doesn't know about my Seagate 277R hard disk. Am I stuck with DOS 3.3/Disk Manager if I don't want to give up my 65 MB hard disk? Thanks for any help, Tony Acero ace3@quads.uchicago.edu
reichert@motcid.UUCP (Chuck KD9JQ) (06/21/91)
A Note of Caution...Do not Low Level Format any IDE HardDrives that involves changing the interleave, heads, cyls, or sectors. This may cause you grief! Chuck Reichert KD9JQ
jcwasik@PacBell.COM (Joe Wasik) (06/21/91)
In article esaholm@polaris.utu.fi (Esa Holmberg) writes: > > With DOS 4 (and prior), I have to use Disk Manager to get full > use of my hard disc, as it has more cylinders than DOS 4 can > understand. Has the 1024 cylinder limit finally been removed, > or do I still have to stick with Disk Manager.. ?-) > DOS 5 allows large disks -- but that increased capacity must still remain with the first 1024 cylinders. I believe this is a problem with the BIOS, i.e. it's on a chip. -- Joe Wasik, Pac*Bell, 2600 Camino Ramon, Rm 4E750V, San Ramon, CA (415)823-2422 email: jcwasik@clib.PacBell.COM or [...]!pacbell!clib!jcwasik If Webster was so smart, how come his dictionaries don't have an index?
martell@ucs.ubc.ca (Jonn Martell) (06/21/91)
In article <1991Jun20.092801.31571@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu> 1h1a0m@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu writes: >> Why should the drive be low level formatted every 6 months? >> >> Doug > >Perhaps to freshen up the track info which, unlike when writing a new file >to disk, is not written over old track info. I suppose the read/write heads >become misaligned with time, just a like a car goes out of tune. Doing a >low level format sets everything back to zero, as if you had bought a new HD. > >Tony > True, but beginners should use a safe low-level "refresher" such as the ones provided by NU 5.0/6.0 and PC Tools 7.0. Not all HDs can be low-level formatted and improperly low-level formatting the wrong type of HD with the wrong type of utility can seriously damage it. -- Jonn Martell - PC Support Centre - University Computing Services University of British Columbia - 6356 Agricultural Rd. Vancouver BC V7T 1H1 E-Mail Internet: martell@ucs.ubc.ca Compuserve: >INTERNET:martell@ucs.ubc.ca *** DONT FLAME IT - FRAME IT ***
veit@du9ds3.uni-duisburg.de (Holger Veit) (06/21/91)
In <1991Jun20.152024.26838@midway.uchicago.edu> ace3@quads.uchicago.edu (anibal antonio acero) writes: >My RLL hard disk controller doesn't have a ROM, and my AT's BIOS doesn't >know about my Seagate 277R hard disk. Am I stuck with DOS 3.3/Disk Manager >if I don't want to give up my 65 MB hard disk? >Thanks for any help, >Tony Acero >ace3@quads.uchicago.edu If you have access to an EPROM programmer, you can patch your BIOS to include the disk parameters. Select two parameter sets in the BIOS. Increment the values of one of these to match your disk parameters and dekrement the other set to the same amount. This is because most BIOS have a checksum over the disk param table. To find the table is a bit of debug work. I remember the table is located usually at the same spot (where IBM put it in their original BIOS), but I forgot the address. Another possibility: often modern BIOS have the entry 47, which is programmable by the setup. This is of course only possible if you have not already another disk parameter set allocated to it. Hope this helps Holger -- | | / Holger Veit | INTERNET: veit@du9ds3.uni-duisburg.de |__| / University of Duisburg | BITNET: veit%du9ds3.uni-duisburg.de@UNIDO | | / Fac. of Electr. Eng. | UUCP: ...!uunet!unido!unidui!hl351ge | |/ Dept. f. Dataprocessing |
veit@du9ds3.uni-duisburg.de (Holger Veit) (06/21/91)
In <9057@pbhyf.PacBell.COM> jcwasik@PacBell.COM (Joe Wasik) writes: >In article esaholm@polaris.utu.fi (Esa Holmberg) writes: >> >> With DOS 4 (and prior), I have to use Disk Manager to get full >> use of my hard disc, as it has more cylinders than DOS 4 can >> understand. Has the 1024 cylinder limit finally been removed, >> or do I still have to stick with Disk Manager.. ?-) >> >DOS 5 allows large disks -- but that increased capacity must still >remain with the first 1024 cylinders. I believe this is a problem >with the BIOS, i.e. it's on a chip. This is a problem "with the BIOS", but it cannot be overcome easily. Some low level routines (INT 13H, Funtion 7 or 8, for instance) make use of the disk parameter set. The maximum value of cylinders to be entered there is 1024. INT 13, function 7, (BIOS low level formatter) as another example uses the 16 bit CX register for passing the cylinder number and sector number (divided into 10 bit cylinder and 6 bit sector, so you may have 64 sectors/track, in theory). Other functions and especially programs using these BIOS functions (e.g. the DOS itself) rely on these and similiar restrictions. I think DM and dmdrvr.bin intercept the BIOS INT 13 and retranslate an odd cylinder number into the 1024/64 address space and are this way able to overcome the problem. >-- >Joe Wasik, Pac*Bell, 2600 Camino Ramon, Rm 4E750V, San Ramon, CA (415)823-2422 >email: jcwasik@clib.PacBell.COM or [...]!pacbell!clib!jcwasik >If Webster was so smart, how come his dictionaries don't have an index? Holger -- | | / Holger Veit | INTERNET: veit@du9ds3.uni-duisburg.de |__| / University of Duisburg | BITNET: veit%du9ds3.uni-duisburg.de@UNIDO | | / Fac. of Electr. Eng. | UUCP: ...!uunet!unido!unidui!hl351ge | |/ Dept. f. Dataprocessing |
burton@asdsun.larc.nasa.gov (John Burton) (06/21/91)
In article <GINSBURG.91Jun19164100@rio.cme.nist.gov>, ginsburg@cme.nist.gov (Dylan Ginsburg) writes: |> In article <1991Jun19.145110.31553@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu> 1h1a0m@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu writes: |> > I did low level format the HD upon the recommendation of tech support at |> > HDI (Hard Drives International). They said low level formatting should be |> > done every 6 months or so. It didn't hurt my HD since I knew what I was |> > doing. |> > |> > I guess we could close the thread on this topic for now. |> |> Not quite, why should the drive be low level formatted every 6 months? |> |> -Dylan Actually it depends on the type of disk drive you have...regular low level formatting *is/was* recommended for the disk drives with stepper motor head acuators (mostly older drives and current low end drives). This applies primarily to MFM and RLL drives (not sure about IDE drives since you generally *can't* low-level format them, SCSI & ESDI I have no experience with). The reason being is that stepper motors position R/W heads relative to themselves, NOT relative to the disk surfaces (basically it sticks the heads in a particular position in space and *hope* that the particular track is under it). The position of the r/w head relative to a given track *can* change over time due to wear, thermal expansion, mounting position (vertical/horizontal/upside-down...) bumps & shocks, (the phase of the moon :-). The relative positioning can drift somewhat without any problems, but if it drifts too much, you begin to get problems such as overwriting old data on adjacent tracks, not being able to read sector information (laid down during a low-level format). Generally this manifests itself a rash of disk I/O errors, sectors not found, bad blocks, etc... Low-level formatting basically re-aligns the r/w heads with the tracks by erasing the old tracks and placing new tracks directly under the r/w heads... Thats a very general description of why the recommendation...as I said this applies to RLL & MFM disks, I don't have any experience with IDE/ESDI/SCSI drives... John +--------------------------------------------------------------------+ | John Burton | | G & A Technical Software | | jcburt@gatsibm.larc.nasa.gov | | jcburt@cs.wm.edu | | | | Disclaimer: Hey, what can I say...These are *my* views, not those | | of anyone else, be they employer, school, or government| +--------------------------------------------------------------------+
hargrove@asc.slb.com (Jim Hargrove) (06/21/91)
>>>>> martell@ucs.ubc.ca (Jonn Martell) writes: >>> Nntp-Posting-Host: swiss.ucs.ubc.ca >>> In article <1991Jun20.092801.31571@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu> 1h1a0m@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu writes: >> Why should the drive be low level formatted every 6 months? >> >> Doug > >Perhaps to freshen up the track info which, unlike when writing a new file >to disk, is not written over old track info. I suppose the read/write heads >become misaligned with time, just a like a car goes out of tune. Doing a >low level format sets everything back to zero, as if you had bought a new HD. > >Tony > >>> True, but beginners should use a safe low-level "refresher" such as the ones >>> provided by NU 5.0/6.0 and PC Tools 7.0. >>> Not all HDs can be low-level formatted and improperly low-level formatting the >>> wrong type of HD with the wrong type of utility can seriously damage it. In particular, most of the refreshers won't work properly with SCSI drives. You'll have to do a real LL Format. -- -- jwh
jcmorris@mwunix.mitre.org (Joe Morris) (06/22/91)
For those of you who've been following the thread about low-level formatting of hard disks check out the issue of PC Magazine which just came out. (My copy is at home, so I can't tell you the date.) One of the articles explains why some disks (various models, various vendors) cannot be successfully low-level formatted in the field. As I recall this thread was started by a user who took an IBM disk, low-level reformatted it for use on another system, and now cannot reformat the disk to work with the IBM controller. The article seems almost tailor-made to respond to that query. In short, some disk/controllers use servo information recorded on the disk to control the head radius and to compensate for both short-term (thermal) and long-term (wear) drift. Without special hardware which is unlikely to be anywhere but a manufacturer's facility or a large repair shop, these servo tracks cannot be written in the field by controllers which expect to use them. Other controllers, however, know nothing about servo tracks and cheerfully overwrite them if instructed to do a low-level format. The result is that the disk, once the servo tracks are destroyed, cannot be used with a controller which expects those tracks to exist, and the controller is incapable of writing those tracks even in a low-level format. Joe Morris
user2@cgevs3.cem.msu.edu (Stephen Medlin) (06/22/91)
In article <1991Jun20.092801.31571@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu>, 1h1a0m@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu writes: >In article <GINSBURG.91Jun19164100@rio.cme.nist.gov>, ginsburg@cme.nist.gov (Dylan Ginsburg) writes: > >> Why should the drive be low level formatted every 6 months? >> >> Doug > >Perhaps to freshen up the track info which, unlike when writing a new file >to disk, is not written over old track info. I suppose the read/write heads >become misaligned with time, just a like a car goes out of tune. Doing a >low level format sets everything back to zero, as if you had bought a new HD. > Good answer. It does realign the read/write heads. I have also heard that it "freshens" the magnetic moments on a hard disk which start to re-orient themselves and lose their information. However, on my MFM hard disk, I probably did a low level format once in the 3-4 years that I used it (and then only because my FAT got scrambled). I've switched to an IDE drive and I've heard that it is more critical to re-initialize (re format) IDE's than other types of drives. Any truth to this? Stephen Medlin medlin@cemvax.cem.msu.edu
t02@clark.edu (Torry Schreiner) (06/25/91)
In article <1991Jun19.171414.24136@unixg.ubc.ca> martell@ucs.ubc.ca (Jonn Martell) writes: >In article <1991Jun18.091756.31516@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu> 1h1a0m@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu writes: > >Thanks to all the folks that gave suggestions about disk manager and dos 5. >It turned out that disk manager is not needed any longer. The steps I took >follow: >- make dos 5 bootable diskettes >- boot with dos 5 in drive A: >- low level format HD with debug (controller has rom in it to do that) >- fdisk with dos 5 >- format with dos 5 Does anyone know if dos 5 can deal with drives of 1024 cylinders or more? I need Disk Manager to use 300 plus cylinders of my drive. Can dos 5 do it alone so I can get rid of the (pain-in-the-ass) Disk Manager.
kurt@photon.tamu.edu (Kurt Freiberger) (06/25/91)
In article <1991Jun20.092801.31571@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu>, 1h1a0m@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu writes: |> In article <GINSBURG.91Jun19164100@rio.cme.nist.gov>, ginsburg@cme.nist.gov (Dylan Ginsburg) writes: |> |> > Why should the drive be low level formatted every 6 months? |> > |> > Doug |> |> Perhaps to freshen up the track info which, unlike when writing a new file |> to disk, is not written over old track info. I suppose the read/write heads |> become misaligned with time, just a like a car goes out of tune. Doing a |> low level format sets everything back to zero, as if you had bought a new HD. No offense, but.... Bullshit! If a drive/controller is working fine, there should be no reason to reformat as often as 6 months. The "magnetic creep" effect is much slower than that, on the order of years. The same goes for the "drifting head" syndrome. If you find that you have to format often, then you have a bad drive or controller. Formatting a drive only hides the problem. If you can hack the possibility that your drive will suddenly not work sometime in the future, it's a band-aid. Also, PLEASE don't use a low-level format as a diagnostic. It should be used when the hardware is known to be good. You can mask serious problems if you do. It'll bite you someday. I know. I've had to reformat my ST4038 twice in the last 5-7 years. Once when I got it, and again when a controller scribbled all over the drive. Same for my Maxtors. Cheers - Kurt -- Kurt Freiberger, wb5bbw kurt@cs.tamu.edu 409/847-8706 Dept. of Computer Science, Texas A&M University DoD #264 *** Not an official document of Texas A&M University ***
kurt@photon.tamu.edu (Kurt Freiberger) (06/25/91)
In article <9057@pbhyf.PacBell.COM>, jcwasik@PacBell.COM (Joe Wasik) writes: |> In article esaholm@polaris.utu.fi (Esa Holmberg) writes: |> > |> > With DOS 4 (and prior), I have to use Disk Manager to get full |> > use of my hard disc, as it has more cylinders than DOS 4 can |> > understand. Has the 1024 cylinder limit finally been removed, |> > or do I still have to stick with Disk Manager.. ?-) |> > |> DOS 5 allows large disks -- but that increased capacity must still |> remain with the first 1024 cylinders. I believe this is a problem |> with the BIOS, i.e. it's on a chip. I have the AMI BIOS on my beast and to my surprise, there's an entry for my Maxtor 1224 track drive! But DOS 4.xx and DRDOS 5.00 both couldn't hack the 1024 limit. <sigh> Guess I'll have to try again with DOS 5.0 to be sure.... -- Kurt Freiberger, wb5bbw kurt@cs.tamu.edu 409/847-8706 Dept. of Computer Science, Texas A&M University DoD #264 *** Not an official document of Texas A&M University ***
thochin@unixg.ubc.ca (Thochin Chua) (06/26/91)
Unfortunately, DOS 5.0 (and probably ALL figure versions of DOS) will not work with the wonky drives that have more than 1024 cylinders. Granted that almost all modern drives use greater number of platter to increase capacity than to increase the number of cylinders, it's getting rare to find drives with greater than 1024 cylinders anyways. Unfotunately, I'm one of those unlucky ones who have to still use SpeedStor 8(. Tc
dtb@adpplz.UUCP (Tom Beach) (06/27/91)
In article <1991Jun26.062825.6947@unixg.ubc.ca>, thochin@unixg.ubc.ca (Thochin Chua) writes: > > Unfortunately, DOS 5.0 (and probably ALL figure versions of DOS) will not work with the wonky drives that have more than 1024 cylinders. Granted that almost all modern drives use greater number of platter to increase capacity than to increase the number o> f cylinders, it's getting rare to find drives with greater than 1024 cylinders anyways. Unfotunately, I'm one of those unlucky ones who have to still use SpeedStor 8(. > That's not quite true, actually MOST modern drives have well over 1024 cylinders. They also use the embedded AT interface, sometimes called ide. This allows them to mask the "true" disk geometry from the BIOS and OS. This also allows use of zone bit recording (ZBR) techniques. Something else that the BIOS can't cope with. Tom Beach ------------------------------------------------------------------------ | Tom Beach : Sr Project Engineer : Mass Storage Technology | | phone : (503) 294-1541 | | email : uunet : dtb@adpplz.uucp | | ADP Dealer Services, ADP Plaza, 2525 S.W. 1st Ave, Portland OR, 97201 | ------------------------------------------------------------------------