Path: utzoo!utgpu!cunews!bnrgate!bwdls58!mlord
From: mlord@bwdls58.bnr.ca (Mark Lord)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: MFM -- RLL drive
Message-ID: <4431@bwdls58.UUCP>
Date: 25 Sep 90 19:19:56 GMT
References: <2a81P1w162w@zooid.UUCP>
Sender: mlord@bwdls58.UUCP
Reply-To: mlord@bwdls58.bnr.ca (Mark Lord)
Organization: Bell-Northern Research, Ottawa, Canada
Lines: 24

In article <2a81P1w162w@zooid.UUCP> dve@zooid.UUCP (David Mason) writes:
>
>I have a 70 mb 28ms full height Micropolis 1330 (I think, or 1335) hard 
>disk. It currently has an MFM controller. I was told by a couple of 
>individuals that it would be safe to RLL this drive (to about 110mb, I 
>think), and a couple of other people told me this drive could NOT be safely 
>RLL'd. I'd like to know the "real" answer...

Back it up, borrow an RLL controller from a close friend, and try it.

If it formats with only a few bad sectors, then buy an RLL controller
and count your megabytes.  Otherwise, reformat it with MFM.

Drives from 2 years ago stand an excellent chance of working with RLL,
since back then nobody was sampling drives specifically for MFM/RLL.
That is probably why older drives tended to have fewer bad sectors on
average (MFM), as well.  My old Miniscribe works fine, with zero bad 
sectors under MFM, RLL, and ADRT/ARLL.  My new Seagate 251-1 worked only
under MFM reliably.  Your mileage may vary, so try before you buy.
-- 
 ___Mark S. Lord__________________________________________
| ..uunet!bnrgate!mlord%bmerh724 | Climb Free Or Die (NH) |
| MLORD@BNR.CA   Ottawa, Ontario | Personal views only.   |
|________________________________|________________________|