Re: Correctly configuring an old HDD : Miniscribe 3085


"Mike Tomlinson" <mike@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:LqlKdXGW+$CLFw0+@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
In article <7n260mF3ituhfU1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, Rich <notty@xxxxxxxxxx>
writes
Great stuff. Is the capacity correct? (about 70MB)

No, It reads about 60Mb.

From the info you gave earlier:

STARTING
Type Boot Cyl Head Sector
6 80 0 1 1

ENDING
Cyl Head Sector
584 13 17

so PM believes the disk starts at (0,0,1) and ends at (584,13,17). The
ending figures are not the ones we know the disk physically has, so
there is some translation taking place somewhere, almost certainly in
the BIOS. You are booting from a clean floppy - one without the DM
overlay installed, as that only confuses matters?

That's 129064 sectors of 512 bytes, which is 66080768 bytes. That's
63.02 real megabytes, or 66.08 MB in drive maker's sales-weasel terms.

As we know, the real CHS is (1170,7,17) = 139230 sectors = 67.98 real MB
or 71.29 weasel MB, which agrees with the figure in my black book.

I think we can conclude you're not getting the full capacity.

I think the drive was only low-level formatted to
1024 cyl.

Almost certainly. It's because the PC BIOS, due to legacy limitations,
cannot boot past cylinder 1024.

I've got Ontrack's Disk Manager (DM) made for Miniscribe and chose the drive
I have (3085), but I've not been able to do anything to get it to let go of
the 1024 limit.

Odd. I would have thought DM would get past that, but it's many years
since I've used it. It installs a software "shim" to work around the
problem. But you have to remember to let the system boot off the hard
drive so that the overlay is loaded - booting off a DOS floppy, for
instance, bypasses it as it doesn't get a chance to load.

Set translation to OFF in the BIOS so that DM sees the real c/h/s spec
of the disk and not what BIOS wants it to see, then reinstall DM.

In DM I can configure CMOS to TYPE 47, which is at 1170 cyl in my system
BIOS.
It warns that this configuration is a bigger cylinder value than the actual
cylinders on the drive (1024).

Are you sure it actually says that? If so, there is definitely
translation being done by the BIOS.

Does the BIOS have a HD format utility of its own? It's usually in the
root menu, not in a submenu. Use it and start with a clean HD.

--
Mike Tomlinson

I needed, it seems, Ontrack's Disk Manager (DM) for Miniscribe to get a low-level format at 1170 cyl.

With that in mind, I got the following files:

command.com
config.sys
diag.exe
diag.ref
diskpark.com
diskpark.ref
dm.exe
dm.ref
dmcfig.exe
dmcfig.ref
dmdrvr.bin
drvspace.bin
io.sys
msdos.sys
online.hlp
readme
swbios.com
swbios.ref

I had DOS 6.22 in memory from some DOS 6.22 bootup disk. I used "Format B: /s" and formatted a floppy for my DM.

After formatting a floppy, I put in the floppy with the above files on, and copied all of the files to the newly formatted floppy, but I did not overwrite io.sys, msdos.sys or command com, because the same DOS versions are already on the formatted floppy because of the Format /s switch.

Then I named the new bootable floppy "DM" and I use it to boot with. Of course, after boot up with the floppy, I have an A drive and a C drive.

When the PC is booted I use DM or DM /m to load Disk Managerm and try to get a 1170 cyl reformat at low-level. Unless I achieve that, I think I'm stuck.

Is my problem something to do with having a mounted drive?

Translation is OFF in BIOS. I'll check again.

No format in root menu.

If the PC wants to turn off, the DM floppy is in when it next boots.

.

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