purkers@jacobs.CS.ORST.EDU (Scott Purkerson) (04/25/91)
Earlier there was discussion about the Seagate ST1144A hard drive; I'd like to get mail from people who have actually installed Coherent on one. Is there any special installation procedure which is different than other hard drives? any problems with using an 1144A? I'm also thinking of buying a Conner CP30104 (instead of the 1144) and would like the same information from anyone who has installed Coherent on one of these. Last of all (but perhaps most important), I've heard that using IDE drives may be a little trouble (only the factory does any low-level formatting(?)). Will I be able to change the Coherent partition back to DOS if I'm so inclined? If these are questions others would like answered too, then I will post a follow-up article with info that I receive. Thanks! Scott -- "You cannot build character and courage by taking away man's initiative and independence." --Abraham Lincoln purkers@jacobs.cs.orst.edu
michaelv@iastate.edu (Vanloon Michael Lee) (04/25/91)
In <1991Apr24.201053.12622@lynx.CS.ORST.EDU> purkers@jacobs.CS.ORST.EDU (Scott Purkerson) writes: >I'm also thinking of buying a Conner CP30104 (instead of the 1144) >and would like the same information from anyone who has installed >Coherent on one of these. I've been using two Connor CP3104 (your typo?) hard drives in my system for about a year now. DOS, Coherent, and SCO Unix all work beautifully on them. Of course, I do have a bios that I can customize the head/cylinder/sector count on. That my be a prerequisite. They are wonderful drives and I haven't had a drop of problem with any software on either drive. >Last of all (but perhaps most important), I've heard that using IDE >drives may be a little trouble (only the factory does any low-level >formatting(?)). Will I be able to change the Coherent partition >back to DOS if I'm so inclined? Nope. Depends on the drive, really. I've had absolutely no problems rearranging and resizing partitions on these drives. And, it's actually better that the drives are only low-level formatted once at the factory. The drive is smart enough to keep its own bad-track list internally and map out the bad spots with good ones automatically and invisibly to the user. No problems with Coherent, though. :) Can't speak for the Seagate--never actually seen one in use. -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Michael L. VanLoon "Ignorance is bliss..." michaelv@iastate.edu -- Computer Engineering, Iowa State University ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
purkers@jacobs.CS.ORST.EDU (Scott Purkerson) (05/01/91)
In article <1991Apr24.201053.12622@lynx.CS.ORST.EDU> I wrote: > >Earlier there was discussion about the Seagate ST1144A >hard drive; I'd like to get mail from people who have actually >installed Coherent on one...[stuff deleted] > >I'm also thinking of buying a Conner CP30104 (instead of the 1144)... >[stuff deleted] > >Last of all (but perhaps most important), I've heard that using IDE >drives may be a little trouble... >[stuff deleted] >...I will post a follow-up article with info that I receive. > [special thanks to Robert K. Hamilton, David Baldwin, Michael L. VanLoon and John Winans for the following information. :-)] There were three replies about the Seagate ST-1144A and one about the Conner CP30104. Evidently, MWC has special instructions for installing Coherent with the ST-1144 that you can request. It sounds like there are two requirements for installation and maybe a third: 1. You need Coherent 3.1.0 or later. 2. You need a user configurable BIOS [ 3. You may need to have AMI BIOS {4/9/90 or later}, but I know that Award has a user configurable BIOS {version 3.10 or later} that may or may not work. There are probably others.] (Maybe someone can give more exact information about this!) The drive parameters used for AMI BIOS are: Drive Type: 47 (user defined) Cylinders: 1001 Sectors/Track: 17 Write precompression cylinder: 1002 (disables) Control Byte: 0 Therefore, it shouldn't be too difficult to install Coherent on the ST-1144A as long as you have a user definable AMI BIOS. The Conner CP30104 drive sounds like it has a good probability of working with Coherent. [A note of general info: the CP30104 is a small, thin 120MB drive that must have just recently been released by Conner. Like the ST-1144A, it has a 19ms av seek time. The CP3104 is a 25ms, 100MB drive which is also small, quiet and fast.] Although the reply to me was about the CP3104, the person states he was able to run DOS, Coherent, and SCO Unix without any hardware or software problems. He mentioned that his BIOS is user definable, but didn't give the brand name (AMI? Award?...). A couple people discussed IDE drives in general to answer my question about being able to delete Coherent if I didn't want to use it anymore ;-). I see now that you can reformat your IDE hard drive any way you like using the high-level format, but you must not use the low-level format. A recent article about the IDE interface is in the May 14, 1991 issue of PC Magazine (Vol. 10, No. 9, p. 379) by Winn L. Rosch. This seems to be a very good reference for understanding the IDE standard in general because it answers many of the confusing questions people have brought up in the past (i.e. self- adjustment to BIOS config; IDE versus ESDI, RLL, MFM, SCSI in speed; etc...). As to which HD I chose to buy -- I chose the Seagate 1144 because my distributor told me very few ever come back for repair. Although the Conner CP3104 seems to have a good record, the CP30104 seems to be relatively new on the market. I wanted proven reliability; the Seagate cost slightly more, but had slightly less $/MB ratio. I hope this follows up my previous request for information well enough. I'm definitely not an expert, but I will answer any questions if you want to email me. Thanks to all the people who replied! :-) -- "You cannot build character and courage by taking away man's initiative and independence." --Abraham Lincoln purkers@jacobs.cs.orst.edu
michaelv@iastate.edu (Vanloon Michael Lee) (05/01/91)
In <1991Apr30.223206.10229@lynx.CS.ORST.EDU> purkers@jacobs.CS.ORST.EDU (Scott Purkerson) writes: >In article <1991Apr24.201053.12622@lynx.CS.ORST.EDU> I wrote: >> >>Earlier there was discussion about the Seagate ST1144A >>hard drive; I'd like to get mail from people who have actually >>installed Coherent on one...[stuff deleted] >> >>I'm also thinking of buying a Conner CP30104 (instead of the 1144)... >>[stuff deleted] >> >>Last of all (but perhaps most important), I've heard that using IDE >>drives may be a little trouble... >>[stuff deleted] >>...I will post a follow-up article with info that I receive. >> >[special thanks to Robert K. Hamilton, David Baldwin, Michael L. VanLoon >and John Winans for the following information. :-)] >There were three replies about the Seagate ST-1144A and one about the >Conner CP30104. [stuff about ST-1144A deleted] >The Conner CP30104 drive sounds like it has a good probability of >working with Coherent. [A note of general info: the CP30104 is a >small, thin 120MB drive that must have just recently been released >by Conner. Like the ST-1144A, it has a 19ms av seek time. The CP3104 >is a 25ms, 100MB drive which is also small, quiet and fast.] Although >the reply to me was about the CP3104, the person states he was able to run >DOS, Coherent, and SCO Unix without any hardware or software problems. >He mentioned that his BIOS is user definable, but didn't give the >brand name (AMI? Award?...). I have a Phoenix BIOS with configurable drive parameters. I use these param's for my Conner CP3104 (sorry, didn't know about the CP30104): Drive type: 48 Cylinders: 776 Heads: 8 Sectors/Track: 33 >Thanks to all the people who replied! :-) Works great for me. Glad I could be of help. :-) >purkers@jacobs.cs.orst.edu
gsm@mailgsm.mendelson.com (Geoffrey S. Mendelson) (05/01/91)
purkers@jacobs.CS.ORST.EDU (Scott Purkerson) says: > >A couple people discussed IDE drives in general to answer my question >about being able to delete Coherent if I didn't want to use it >anymore ;-). I see now that you can reformat your IDE hard drive >any way you like using the high-level format, but you must not >use the low-level format. The lack of low level formating software is a myth. There are several packages that will properly lowlevel format IDE drives. Many manufacturers now provide programs that will lowlevel format their IDE drives. Maxstor provides programs that will lowlevel format their ide drives. ONTRACK, the software that sometimes comes free with drives, usually segate, is also available in a GENERIC version. The GENERIC version will lowlevel format some IDE drives. However, I would not recommend using a lowlevel format on an IDE drive unless you know that it will work for that specific model. ------ Copyright (C) 1991, Geoffrey S. Mendelson. All Rights Reserved. Except for usenet followups, may not be reproduced without permsission. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | Computer Software Consulting | | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Geoffrey S. Mendelson I've written and debugged almost eight thousand geoffrey@mendelson.com LINES of C code under Coherent in the last two mwcbbs!mailgsm!geoffrey months. :-) (215) 242-8712 And my wife still speaks to me!