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From: terry@spcvxb.spc.edu (Terry Kennedy, Operations Mgr.)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.dec
Subject: Re: DEC RDxx (ST506) drives (was Re: hard drives for q-bus
Message-ID: <1991Apr16.213810.1255@spcvxb.spc.edu>
Date: 16 Apr 91 21:38:10 GMT
References: <1991Apr16.055810.1249@spcvxb.spc.edu> <1991Apr11.114144.79@ulkyvx.bitnet> <1991Apr15.190345.5198@ni.umd.edu> <14280@ccncsu.ColoState.EDU>
Organization: St. Peter's College, US
Lines: 24

In article <14280@ccncsu.ColoState.EDU>, steved@longs.LANCE.ColoState.Edu (Steve Dempsey) writes:
> BTW, we recently had trouble replacing RD54s in VS2000 systems.
> A 3rd party sold us some XT2190s; some worked and some did not.
> Strangely enough, we received two drives with sequential serial
> numbers, of which one works and one does not -- bizarre!
> 
> The vendor sez that Maxtor sez the modified XT2190s were overrun
> and got randomly distributed -- you're lucky if you stumble on
> the modified ones.  Anyway, this vendor is the first we've had
> these problems with.  They can't deliver any more drives guaranteed
> to be RD54 compatible.

  The modified XT-2190's (XT-2190 D) has a lower current surge on startup and
acoustic damping on the positioner. I believe the logic boards are identical.

  Your problem could be a number of things, including jumper settings on the
drive, defects on critical sectors, or formatter problems. I've had maybe 20
2190's over the last few years, all of which have formatted fine for DEC use.
I'm using the PDP-11 formatter for an RQDX3. It seems you're using TEST XX
on a MV2000, which may be different.

	Terry Kennedy		Operations Manager, Academic Computing
	terry@spcvxa.bitnet	St. Peter's College, US
	terry@spcvxa.spc.edu	(201) 915-9381