v087mxgb@ubvmsa.cc.buffalo.edu (Shawn E Thompson) (05/14/91)
Thank you for reading............ I have a type 2 - 20 Mb MFM hard drive installed (works fine) I received a 30 Mb RLL drive FREE!!! and want to use both Ive heard that I can, but how do I do this....both have a controller card for my 286 machine, how do I partition them and set one as drive 0 and one as drive 1, etc.... TIA ST
chchoi@eng.auburn.edu (Cheong Hyeon Choi) (05/15/91)
In article <76334@eerie.acsu.Buffalo.EDU> v087mxgb@ubvmsa.cc.buffalo.edu writes: >I have a type 2 - 20 Mb MFM hard drive installed (works fine) > >I received a 30 Mb RLL drive FREE!!! and want to use both > >Ive heard that I can, but how do I do this....both have a >controller card for my 286 machine, how do I partition them >and set one as drive 0 and one as drive 1, etc.... > Hi. Yes, I had the same experience. In this case, you try to format MFM drives as RLL if your two MFM drive is products of Seagate. After that, you are getting more disk capacities. With my experience, there had been no problem. But I don't know exactly why it works but very fine. As I know, the capacity of the MFM drive is going to increase by 50%. Do it. Choi`
oneel@heawk1.gsfc.nasa.gov ( Bruce Oneel ) (05/15/91)
In article <chchoi.910514223205@banana.eng.auburn.edu> chchoi@eng.auburn.edu (Cheong Hyeon Choi) writes: In article <76334@eerie.acsu.Buffalo.EDU> v087mxgb@ubvmsa.cc.buffalo.edu writes: >I have a type 2 - 20 Mb MFM hard drive installed (works fine) > >I received a 30 Mb RLL drive FREE!!! and want to use both > >Ive heard that I can, but how do I do this....both have a >controller card for my 286 machine, how do I partition them >and set one as drive 0 and one as drive 1, etc.... > Hi. Yes, I had the same experience. In this case, you try to format MFM drives as RLL if your two MFM drive is products of Seagate. After that, you are getting more disk capacities. With my experience, there had been no problem. But I don't know exactly why it works but very fine. As I know, the capacity of the MFM drive is going to increase by 50%. Do it. Choi` Well, you can reformat your MFM drive as RLL, but, it might not work as well as you want it to. Most newer MFM drives really aren't "certified" to run RLL. As an example, a ST238 (30 or so meg, seagate RLL drive) is the same as a ST225 (20 or so meg, seagate MFM drive). (I may have the numbers wrong, but the idea is right). They're the same things, but, the st238 has passed tests showing that it will work with the higher densities of RLL. Sure, the 225 will low level format to 30 or so meg with an rll controller, but you may get errors later (or sooner). It's up to you. The reason why there is about a 50 % increase in the disk space is that MFM is 17? sectors per track and RLL is 26? sectors per track. bruce -- Bruce O'Neel oneel@heasfs.gsfc.nasa.gov NASA/GSFC/STX/Code 664
richard@ariel.ucs.unimelb.edu.au (Richard Begg) (05/16/91)
In article <chchoi.910514223205@banana.eng.auburn.edu>, chchoi@eng.auburn.edu (Cheong Hyeon Choi) writes: |> In article <76334@eerie.acsu.Buffalo.EDU> v087mxgb@ubvmsa.cc.buffalo.edu writes: |> >I have a type 2 - 20 Mb MFM hard drive installed (works fine) |> > |> >I received a 30 Mb RLL drive FREE!!! and want to use both |> > |> >Ive heard that I can, but how do I do this....both have a |> >controller card for my 286 machine, how do I partition them |> >and set one as drive 0 and one as drive 1, etc.... |> > |> Hi. Yes, I had the same experience. In this case, you try to format |> MFM drives as RLL if your two MFM drive is products of Seagate. |> After that, you are getting more disk capacities. With my experience, |> there had been no problem. But I don't know exactly why it works but |> very fine. As I know, the capacity of the MFM drive is going to increase |> by 50%. Do it. |> |> Choi` You can TRY to format your 20MB as RLL, but if you value your data, I wouldn't recommend it. I seem to remember an argument about this earlier this year. Maybe it will work for you, but from personal experience, the problems aren't worth it. If you wan't to try it, at least get a program like spinrite to have a look at the disk and check it for potential problems. Another idea if you have both MFM and RLL controllers is to install them both. You will need to change the jumpers on one of them to change the IO address and interrupts (I hope you have the manuals!). -- Richard Begg (richard@asis.unimelb.edu.au) Programmer ASIS/ITS - University of Melbourne
mstr@vipunen.hut.fi (Markus Strand) (05/17/91)
>I have a type 2 - 20 Mb MFM hard drive installed (works fine) > >I received a 30 Mb RLL drive FREE!!! and want to use both If you can install both controllers, MFM for the MFM drive and RLL for the RLL drive, if you can change the I/O to do this. OR Use the RLL drive with a MFM controller. You lose some diskspace but you won't have any problems. Markus Strand mstr@vipunen.hut.fi