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From: brian@trantext.UUCP (Brian Bainter)
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
Subject: Re: Using an RLL controller with Minix?
Message-ID: <278@trantext.UUCP>
Date: 20 Sep 89 16:43:33 GMT
References: <631.2515BB51@mudos.ann-arbor.mi.us>
Organization: TranstexT (ICS Atlanta GA.)
Lines: 28

mju@mudos.ann-arbor.mi.us (Marc Unangst) writes:

>Is it possible to use an RLL controller with Minix?  More specifically,
>I want to take a 30MB RLL drive I have now and use 20MB of it with Minix.
>I plan on dividing it up into three filesystems -- /, /usr, and /tmp.
>The other 10MB I'm going to use with DOS.

You most definitely may accomplish this, however, you must change the
sectors per track from the MFM configuration to whatever is used with your
particular RLL controller. This change must be made in both the wini.c and
fsck.c. I have been running for quite some time now using RLL (15 Minix and
15 DOS) and have had absolutely no problems. My Minix is even on the second
drive (I have 2 RLL drives).

>Does the Minix XT hard disk driver support RLL drives?  If the "stock"
>version doesn't, is there a patch that will make it work?

I don't know of any patch, but the modifications are simple. The biggest
problem is finding out how many sector per track you are configured for.
I don't have my system handy, so I am not sure, but I think that mine is
set up for 25 (0x19) sectors per track.

Enjoy,
-- 

Brian R. Bainter  KA7TXA
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