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From: KUO@oregon.uoregon.edu (Shijong Kuo)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: Formatting HD > 1024 cyl
Message-ID: <17720@oregon.uoregon.edu>
Date: 18 Mar 90 19:03:13 GMT
References: <1182@dutrun.UUCP>
Distribution: usa
Organization: University of Oregon
Lines: 21

In article <1182@dutrun.UUCP>, vlrugvg@dutrun.UUCP (Ge van Geldorp) writes:
> I just got myself a Microscience HH 1090 harddisk. It is controlled by a
> WD1006V-MM2, AT-compatible, MFM controller. No special software came
> with either the drive or the controller.
> The problem is that the harddisk has more than 1024 cylinders. 

I've just formatted a microscience 1120 which is identical to 1090 except RLL
 You'll need ontrack's disk manager( which should come with the drive) to do the low level format. Here's what I've found some tricky details:
The machine configuration was 386-25 clone (soyo MB, C & T chips, AMI bios),
WD 1006-SR2 controller and toshiba mk72 HD ( < 1024 cylinders).
First change Cmos setup HD type to user defined (1 in my case). Reboot and start debug, goto WD bios entry point cc00:5 and change drive type and parameters (1314 cyls, 7 hds, ...), then exit debug without proceeding to use
the bios routine to do low level format, ( it will wrap around cyl 1024 and
would not finish). Then put disk manager disk into drive a, run swbios.com
before  runing dm /m . Once you are in DM, first check drive configuration,
make sure the drive parameters recognized by DM is the same as the numbers you entered when defining drive type in WD bios. If yes, you should be in good shape, then proceed to enter defect list, initialize disk and define partition and prepare them for u
se. If DM did not read the same parameters as you entered before, then there's probably some mistake in the enetring process, try again. 

you will need dmdrvr.bin in your config.sys to use the HD. I spoke to both ontrack and WD's tech rep when I was having difficulty getting dos to recognize both HD on my system, they didn't think it could be done because of the situation one drive > 1024 a
nd the other drive < 1024 . For a single 1090 or 2 1090, there shuldn't be any problem. WD 1006 can support disk up to 2048 cyls according to WD people, but you do need third party software to do the low level formatting.
good luck.


kuo@oregon.uoregon.edu