[comp.sys.ibm.pc.misc] Need Help with Sick Seagate ST-4096 Fdisk...

mr@ogre (Michael Regoli) (01/28/91)

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I've just been handed a Seagate ST-4096 hard drive that supposedly has
gone "belly-up."  I've been asked to see if I can power it up and try
to get some data from it.  However, I =don't= have the controller card.

What's the best way to handle this?  Obviously connecting the drive to
one of my Western Digital MFM controller cards won't work since
they're not configured as a ST-4096 (9 heads/1024 cyl/80Mb).  Running
the BIOS formatter to set up the card for the drive will begin doing a
low-level which I =don't= want to do.  (Or is it possible to get the
disk info into the controller's BIOS without doing a low-level?)

I guess my question is one dealing with disk fundamentals.  Can I
configure my system's BIOS/CMOS to the specific drive type (I have
both an AT and 386 class machines that I can connect this drive to) or
does the controller card have to be configured through =its= BIOS?

Thanks for any help!

--
michael regoli
mr@ogre.cica.indiana.edu 
regoli@iubacs.bitnet
...rutgers!iuvax!cica!mr