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From: victoro@crash.cts.com (Victor O'Rear)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware
Subject: Maxtor MFM Drive Failure - HELP!
Summary: Why I can't format my Maxtor Drive
Keywords: MFM vs RLL
Message-ID: <6945@crash.cts.com>
Date: 15 Jan 91 20:31:21 GMT
Sender: root@crash.cts.com
Lines: 21

HELP!  I bought a XT1065 Maxtor 65 Meg drive at the Swap Meet and everything
looked great, so I decided to try a RLL controller as many Maxtor drive are
RLL capable even though the company hasn't "certified" them.  After success-
fully formating the drive I noticed a raft of errors with OpTune and so tried
to reformat under a MFM controller (both WD controllers).

Now I get errors during Fdisk (Error reading Fixed Disk) or error 20's during 
the BIOS low-level fromat.  Once a Fdisk "worked" with 492 sectors out of a
possible 918 reported and the first partition started at 58.

I bought the drive from a J.R. Radeffer of BBS in Costa Mesa, CA.  But the
phone-number was crossed with another business, and the business it was
supposed to connect to was not BBC, but then I expect that he does this
business as a sideline.  So either I have a reputable businessman that's
hard to get to, or I've been taken.  Either way - I could use your help.

Oh, I've called Maxtor and they're very busy but promise to call be back soon
but I may have physically damaged the drive - but the support person I
talked with had to check with his supervision before really committing to
that answer..
.