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From: whitney@husc4.HARVARD.EDU (glen whitney)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: AT formatting problem
Message-ID: <2598@husc6.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 29-Jul-87 17:05:43 EDT
Article-I.D.: husc6.2598
Posted: Wed Jul 29 17:05:43 1987
Date-Received: Fri, 31-Jul-87 05:48:21 EDT
Sender: news@husc6.UUCP
Reply-To: whitney@husc4.UUCP (glen whitney)
Distribution: world
Organization: Harvard Univ. Science Center
Lines: 29


	Let me clarify my original posting.  My problem is as follows:
When I boot up MS-DOS 3.2, and try to format a high-capacity disk in a high-
capacity drive (a:) with 'format a:', DOS gets to the second head on cylinder
0, then prints 'Parameters invalid;.  It then tries again, doesn't get past
the first head first cylinder, and aborts with 'Track 0 bad or Invalid Media'
Having tried many different high-capacity disks, I concluded that Track 0 was
not bad on all of them, and obviously the media wasn't invalid.  After the
first try, DOS never gets past the first head first cylinder, and you never 
get 'Parameters invalid'.   Then I tried rebooting and using PC-DOS 3.1.
Surprise, surprise, PC-DOS 3.1 formats with no problem.  So my question is,
does anyone have an answer?   About a month or more ago, there a discussion 
in the net on the exact same topic.  Someone came up with a solution and a 
reason, but since I had an IBM XT-compatible then (I have an IBM AT-comatible
now) I didn't pay attention to it.  I remember that the person said some-
thing about the amount of free memory causing a problem, but this doesn't 
make sense to me.  So if anyone has a copy of that old discussion, or can
remember it, that would be helpful.  And by the way, I have an AT-compatible
computer running at 10 Mhz, with a 40 Meg hard disk partioned into 2 20's, and
an EGA system, and 1 1.2 Megabyte floppy and one 360 K floppy.   Any help
would be really appreciated.
				Wayne Whitney
--
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