Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!ames!mailrus!rutgers!mtunx!akgua!brb
From: brb@akgua.ATT.COM (Brian R. Bainter)
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
Subject: Re: Wini Driver for OMTI 30M HD, with ST238.
Message-ID: <1783@akgua.ATT.COM>
Date: 25 Apr 88 16:28:11 GMT
References: <389@uvicctr.UUCP>
Organization: AT&T Network Systems/Bell Labs, Atlanta GA
Lines: 34

From article <389@uvicctr.UUCP>, by sbanner1@uvicctr.UUCP (S. John Banner):
> 
>    Hello, Now that Summer is here, I have time to work on getting
> Minix going on my new HardDrive.  The standard driver (Version 1.1)
> gives me "Unrecoverable read errors" on what seems like random sectors
> (about 1 in 10 sectors comes out bad I think), even though all of the
> programs I have tried under DOS say that the harddrive is fine.  If
> anyone has come accross this before, please let me know before I have
> to re-invent the wheel.  By the way, my machine is a 4.77MHz XT clone
> incase that matters at all, with a V20 CPU.
> 
> 		 Thanks in advance,
> 
>                       S. John Banner

	I had a similar problem with putting MINIX on my machine. I also
buggered up many a DOS partition (fortunately I backed up my disk first).
My particular problem was caused by having an RLL controller on my hard drive
instead of a normal controller. An RLL controller will give you approximately
50% more disk capacity on a given drive. There are some controllers out now
that will give you 100% or so more capacity. If you have one of those, you
will have to take proper measures for that particular controller.
	If your controller is indeed the RLL type which gives you the 50%,
you might look in to increasing your sectors per track in wini.c and fsck.c.
Mine went from the original 17 (11 hex) to 25 (19 hex). After this was done,
I have had no more problems with MINIX on my hard drive. If you have an RLL
controller of the variety which gives you more than a 50% increase in capacity,
you will have to do some checking to get the sectors per track. It might be a
good idea to do this anyway. When I asked a dealer what the sectors per track
for my controller was, he said that it was either 25 or 26 and that it depended
pretty much on the controller.

		Good Lock,

		    Brian R. Bainter