Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!apple!agate!linus!linus!tatum!dhf
From: dhf@tatum.mitre.org (David H. Friedman)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware
Subject: Re: Disk Technician Advanced
Message-ID: <1991Jan30.195234.29253@linus.mitre.org>
Date: 30 Jan 91 19:52:34 GMT
References: <11161@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV> <91024.090237ESR@SLACVM.SLAC.STANFORD.EDU>
Sender: dhf@linus.mitre.org (David H. Friedman)
Distribution: usa
Organization: The MITRE Corporation, Bedford, MA 01730
Lines: 21
Nntp-Posting-Host: tatum.mitre.org

.  A week or so ago there was some discussion of Disk Technician, Advanced
Edition, in which it was mentioned that DTA will work on sector-translating
and other "funny" controllers.

   I'm posting this because I have a NEC 386/20 with ST251-1 HD formatted as
a single 42Mb partition using a 1:1 interlace sector-translating controller.
My logical sectors are 1024 bytes instead of the usual 512. When I ran Norton
Utilities v5.0, the Calibrate utility told me it could not do a low-level
format on my HD because of the sector translation. The other Norton programs
(e.g., SpeeDisk) seem to work OK, but this still leaves me hanging as to how
to do a low-level format when I get to the point where it's advisable.

   What I'm asking therefore is: Can anyone confirm whether DTA will in fact
do surface checking, low-level format, etc. on a sector-translated disk, and
if so, which version of the program has this capability?

   And while I'm on the subject, can anyone offer advice on which other
disk maintainers (Spinrite, OpTune, etc.) can cope with sector-translating
controllers?

Thanks in advance from dhf@limus.mitre.org (David H. Friedman)