Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!mcsun!unido!uklirb!gerten
From: gerten@uklirb.informatik.uni-kl.de (Rainer Gerten)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware
Subject: Re: ST506 - IBM rumor about formating
Summary: The formatter is alway on the controller
Keywords: formating ST506
Message-ID: <5949@uklirb.informatik.uni-kl.de>
Date: 28 Jun 90 14:46:48 GMT
References: <1990Jun27.081105.18539@watcsc.waterloo.edu>
Reply-To: gerten@uklirb.UUCP (Rainer Gerten)
Organization: University of Kaiserslautern, W-Germany
Lines: 24

In article <1990Jun27.081105.18539@watcsc.waterloo.edu> sean@watcsc.waterloo.edu (Sean Goggin) writes:
>You wish to format an ST506. 
>The rumor (what I have been told) is that since IBM sells it's 
>drives low level formated that You can't format the drive
>There is a special controller that uses a increased 
>(17something instead for 10something)
>current in the first few sectors that premit the special controller to
>write the format stuff (drive data?) on a degraded media.
>I think the ST506 was sold by ibm, as there first drive for the pc
>with a st4xx as a high end version (10Meg).


The controller for the IBM XT, for the AT and for the PS/2 (50,55,60,80)
have the low-level-formatter in the rom-bios for the disk (on the controller
or built in). In the PC/AT-Line this low-level-formatter is activated with
the debugger or the advanced-diagnose-diskette. On the PS/2 there is a menu
on the reference disk, activated by CTRL-A in the main menu. With that, 
you can low-level format your disk as often as you like.

Greetings.

Rainer Gerten
University of Kaiserslautern
mail: gerten@uklirb.informatik.uni-kl.de