alex@bilver.UUCP (Alex Matulich) (10/06/90)
I just bought a slightly used machine that came with a Conner CP-3104 100-megabyte hard disk. Since it had been jostled around a bit in transport, I decided to do a low-level reformat of the hard disk. The computer, an Aries 386, has a ROM utility that does this. I was asked for the following parameters: Number of Cylinders 776 Number of Heads 8 Sectors per Track 33 W-pcom present Yes W-pcom cylinder 0 Landing Zone 0 The second column above were the default values for these parameters. I know what the first 3 and last one are, but what on earth is a W-pcom? Why is it on track zero? Furthermore, I thought the "Landing Zone" was the track the heads land on at power-up. Should it be track 0? I thought it would be better if they landed on a track that is likely to never be used, like 776. Please e-mail me any help you can give. Everything seems to work fine with the parameters above, but I'd feel more comfortable if I knew what those last three are for! Thanks.... -- _ |__ Alex Matulich (alex@bilver.UUCP) /(+__> Unicorn Research Corp, 4621 N Landmark Dr, Orlando, FL 32817 //| \ UUCP: ...uunet!tarpit!bilver!alex ///__) bitnet: IN%"bilver!alex@uunet.uu.net"
kleonard@gvlv3.gvl.unisys.com (Ken Leonard) (10/08/90)
In article <1070@bilver.UUCP> alex@bilver.UUCP (Alex Matulich) writes:
* I just bought a slightly used machine that came with a Conner CP-3104
* 100-megabyte hard disk. Since it had been jostled around a bit in
* transport, I decided to do a low-level reformat of the hard disk. The
* computer, an Aries 386, has a ROM utility that does this.
*
* I was asked for the following parameters:
*
* Number of Cylinders 776
* Number of Heads 8
* Sectors per Track 33
* W-pcom present Yes
* W-pcom cylinder 0
* Landing Zone 0
*
* The second column above were the default values for these parameters.
* I know what the first 3 and last one are, but what on earth is a
* W-pcom? Why is it on track zero?
--
This does seem a bit weird, but may just be _your_ BIOS way of indicating
that write-precompensation is actually _not_ used.
--
* Furthermore, I thought the "Landing Zone" was the track the heads land
* on at power-up. Should it be track 0? I thought it would be better if
* they landed on a track that is likely to never be used, like 776.
--
I hope you mean "... land on at power-_down_." A zero for this parameter
usually means "Don't try to park the heads from BIOS, because the drive
parks them when _it_ detects power-down."
--
-------------------
regardz,
Ken