Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cornell!vax5!u2zj
From: u2zj@vax5.CIT.CORNELL.EDU
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: Formatting Disks in strange format on AT
Message-ID: <19745@vax5.CIT.CORNELL.EDU>
Date: 1 Feb 90 14:58:25 GMT
References: <1405@iraun1.ira.uka.de> <8328@cg-atla.UUCP>
Sender: news@vax5.CIT.CORNELL.EDU
Reply-To: u2zj@vax5.cit.cornell.edu (Stanton Loh)
Organization: Cornell Information Technologies, Ithaca NY
Lines: 39

In article <1405@iraun1.ira.uka.de> tremmel@ira.uka.de (Wolfgang Tremmel) writes:
>Hi!
>Can anybody tell me if it's possible (and how) to format a disk on an
>AT in the following format:
>		80 Tracks
>		18 Sectors / Track
>	       512 Byte / Sector
>
>Wolfgang Tremmel		tremmel@ira.uka.de	tremmel@garf.ira.uka.de

If you dont mind writing your own program, you can use
INT 13h, service 5 (format diskette track) to custom
format tracks and sectors on your diskette.  This service
formats a diskette a track at a time.  Register AL contains
the number of sectors/track. 

AH = 5h - format diskette one side of a diskette track
AL = number of sectors
CH = track
DH = head
DL = drive
ES:BX = pointer to (number of sectors) * (4-bytes)
        these 4-byte fields decribe (track#,head#,sector#,
        sizecode) for each sector on the track.  the sizecode
        is:
        0=128 bytes, 1=256 bytes, 2=512 bytes, 3=1024 bytes.

It's pretty easy to do from a high level language, like
microsoft C.  The other way to change the number of sectors
(I can't really vouch for this) is to modify byte offset 4
in the disk base table using debug or a program of your own
design.

==============================================================
|Stanton Loh               | u2zj@vax5.cit.cornell.edu       |
|Baker Lab, Cornell Univ   | u2zj@crnlvax5.BITNET            |
|Ithaca, NY 14853-1301     | stanton@chemres.tn.cornell.edu  |
|(607) 255-3726            |                                 |
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