Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!steinmetz!davidsen
From: davidsen@steinmetz.ge.com (William E. Davidsen Jr)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: FORMATTING a AT RLL drive
Keywords: RLL format
Message-ID: <12695@steinmetz.ge.com>
Date: 29 Nov 88 18:50:44 GMT
References: <10649@ihlpa.ATT.COM>
Reply-To: davidsen@crdos1.UUCP (bill davidsen)
Organization: General Electric CRD, Schenectady, NY
Lines: 40

In article <10649@ihlpa.ATT.COM> wolfordj@ihlpa.ATT.COM (452is-Wolford) writes:
| I have a "AT" class WD Floppy / hard disk controler that uses
| RLL format for the hard disk.  (I think WD-1003-RA).
| 
| What programs are available to format these drives ? 
| 
| I know of a program from Storage Dimensions for ~$100, but that
| is a little steap for my blood and since it is just a one
| time use.  Would like a program for <= $25.
| 
| My bios does NOT support any 26 SEC/track drives (ie RLL type).  So what
| is involved in getting around this if any thing.

  I have posted a program to binaries.ibm.pc which will allow you to use
a non-standard hard disk. If you have an old DOS you will be able to
have one partition, 3.3 or later support up to 4. Partitions may be up
to 32MB.

| Before I get any flames, YES I am using this in a "AT" clone
| as my FD/HD controller.
| 
| I am speaking of the low level format (i.e. these drives are NOT
| preformatted) and I know how to use DOS format.
| 
| This is on a AT machine therefor lowlevel format is NOT in the disk
| controller.

I won't disagree with you, but I have used Adaptek, Perstor, and other
WD controllers, and all had format in the ROM. I have never seen a
controller which didn't have it either in ROM or on the disk which comes
with the controller. Did you buy this used or something? I assume that
you used DEBUG to look at the controller ROM, either C800:5 or other
locations at the beginning of ROM which might have the location.

I beleive that the BIOS call to format the hard disk calls the
controller. Did you try using that?
-- 
	bill davidsen		(wedu@ge-crd.arpa)
  {uunet | philabs}!steinmetz!crdos1!davidsen
"Stupidity, like virtue, is its own reward" -me