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From: jca@pnet01.cts.com (John C. Archambeau)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: RLL controllers & MFM disks
Message-ID: <383@crash.cts.com>
Date: 16 Sep 89 19:56:11 GMT
Sender: root@crash.cts.com
Organization: People-Net [pnet01], El Cajon CA
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I have a Seagate dealer manual at work.  And it is 100% true that Seagate
will NOT warranty an MFM drive that has been formatted RLL.  This is also
in the installation guide for Seagate drives if you buy a drive directly
from Seagate.  As for why it wouldn't work, my guess is probably increases
the mean between failure time of the drive even if it's RLL formatted once
and reformatted MFM.  You're making a drive do something it's not meant to
do.  Sure it might work, but you're taking a chance.  I believe the chance
is somewhat similiar to formatting a 720K 3.5" disk 1.44 Mb.  I've also heard
a rumor that Seagate uses a higher quality media in their RLL drives.
This may or may not be true, but I have seen ST225's killed with RLL
formatting.  If you want an RLL'able drive from Seagate, buy one of their
RLL'able drives.  The results with RLL formatting a non-RLL certified drive
could surprisingly work against you.  If you want to throw away your 
money, give it to me, I'll take care of the drive properly.  :)
 
But whatever the scoop is with RLL'ing an MFM drive, we all know this,
especially where I work (even though we deal only SCSI drives).  Don't do it,
it isn't worth it.  It's Seagate's warranty policy.  Hard drives aren't worth
throwing the warranty out the door to get 50% more storage.

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