Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!usc!samsung!nstar!octogard!graham From: graham@octogard.UUCP (Graham Mainwaring) Newsgroups: comp.sys.novell Subject: NetWare on IDE Message-ID: Date: 16 May 91 08:07:43 GMT Organization: The Octopus's Garden BBS Lines: 26 Does anyone out there have experience with running NetWare on IDE hard drives? It seems like a good solution to my problems, but I don't want to put down the money unless I have some idea that it will work. I know that IDE drives are supposed to emulate ST506 as far as software access goes, so that most programs that run with ST506 will run with IDE. This holds up pretty well in a DOS environment - how about NetWare? IDE drives often have non-standard paramater tables - they don't usually have 17 sectors per track, and the numbers for heads and cylinders are often a bit odd. Also, they generally use sector translation, so that the head and cylinder the software requests may not correspond to anything physical. I'm told that "Disk Manager N" will solve compatibility problems due to odd sector and head counts. Also, most IDE drives have a factory-preset defect list, and are not supposed to be low-level formatted by the user. (At least one IDE drive manufacturer says that low-level formatting voids your warranty.) Does surfcomp do a low-level format? Will it interfere with an IDE drive? Responses will be much appreciated, either in e-mail or in public. I will summarize to the net if I get any "me too" e-mails. --- The Octopus's Garden BBS UUCP: [backbone]!nstar!octogard!graham +1 919 876 7213 Internet: graham%octogard@nstar.rn.com