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From: mike@UC780.UMD.EDU (Mike Santangelo)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.dec
Subject: Re: hard drives for q-bus
Message-ID: <1991Apr17.154928.27646@ni.umd.edu>
Date: 17 Apr 91 15:49:28 GMT
References: <1991Apr11.114144.79@ulkyvx.bitnet> <1991Apr15.190345.5198@ni.umd.edu>,<1991Apr16.055810.1249@spcvxb.spc.edu>
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In article <1991Apr16.055810.1249@spcvxb.spc.edu>, terry@spcvxb.spc.edu (Terry Kennedy, Operations Mgr.) writes:
>In article <1991Apr15.190345.5198@ni.umd.edu>, mike@UC780.UMD.EDU (Mike Santangelo) writes:
>
>> Well, the DEC RQDX3 uses MFM & ST506 connections, but the drive types
>> for 2 drives (RD53 and RD54, dunno about RD52) are hardcoded in ROM
>> on the board.  These are really just off-she-shelf ST506 hard disks
>> from QUANTUM and MAXTOR (well, DEC tweaked the motor power control on
>> one I beleive to let it ramp up to speed more slowly to ease the power
>> supply).
>
>  Just to set the record straight - the RQDX3 writes the drive geometry
>information to the disk when it is first formatted. After that, the disk-
>resident copy is used. The RQDX3 can support user-defined geometries as
>well, but you need to be _very_ familiar with the way DEC does MSCP.
>

I stand corrected.  Now, do you or anybody you know - know of a utility
that could write this info given simply #heads and #cylinders?


>  The RD54 is a modified Maxtor XT-2190, the 53 is a modified Micropolis
>1325, the 52 is either a Quantum Q540 or an Atasi 3046, but _never_ an
>Evotek 5540 [That's an in joke], and the 51 is an ST-412.
>
>	Terry Kennedy		Operations Manager, Academic Computing
>	terry@spcvxa.bitnet	St. Peter's College, US
>	terry@spcvxa.spc.edu	(201) 915-9381

+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
Michael F. Santangelo                 + Inet: mike@uc780.umd.edu
VMS / UNIX Systems                    +       mike@socrates.umd.edu
Academic Computing UMUC               + Bnet: MIKE@UC780
(The University of Maryland,          +       MIKE@UMUC (not visited often)
 University College)                  +<Your clever net-phrase here>