Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ames!amdcad!sun!burgundy!jborza
From: jborza%burgundy@Sun.COM (Jim_Borza)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: Need help with Seagate 277R 60mb drive
Keywords: ST277r,WD1002-27x controller.
Message-ID: <90302@sun.uucp>
Date: 17 Feb 89 20:58:01 GMT
References: <4263@cs.Buffalo.EDU>
Sender: news@sun.uucp
Lines: 34

In article <4263@cs.Buffalo.EDU>, ugthomps@cs.Buffalo.EDU (Gregory Thompson) writes:
> I am installing a new ST277R drive in an IBM PC with a WD1002-27X controller.
> [...]
> 
> This has not worked.  A) The drive makes a HIDEOUS noise when it starts up
> (sounds like a carpenter with a hammer)  B) when doing a low level format
> the disk manager that came with the drive seems to want to believe that
> the drive has 1024 cylinders, instead of  the 820 it actually has.
> C) all efforts have pretty much failed.  Yes I used debug as well. 
> [...]
> Cables are all correctly in place.  Power cable is in fine as well.
> Terminator resistor pack is fine (near as I can tell).  Drive select
> is correct.  I've pretty much elimated everything except the controller
> card.  Does anyone has ANY ideas???  Any help on this would be GREATLY
> appreciated.

The difference in the number of cylinders comes from a characteristic of
Western Digital RLL controllers.  Many of them (all?) do a translation
in ROM to make the drive look as if it still contains 17 sectors/track by
re-mapping the addresses.  If the drive has 820 cyls, the W-D should map
it to 1254 cylinders. Unfortunately, DOS's 1024 limit causes you to lose
some cylinders.  The need to maintain the fiction of 17 sec/trk is, for
the most part, obselete. As to the noise, many Seagate drives are noisy
critters - many run for years clanking, growling and whining while others
quietly die.  If the 277 is a stepper-motor drive, it's normal for the
stepper assemblies to be noiser than voice-coil designs. Before you con-
sider the drive defective, let the W-D remap the cylinders and see if you
can format the drive and run with it.  Chances are the noises are "normal"
(but no guarantees, of course).



Jim Borza - Sun Microsystems
Disclaimer?  Sure, why not?