Hi Guys,
Right. Progress.
First the 2nd floppy drive is now going. For some reason the motherboard dip switches were set to only one floppy drive?? The 2nd drive seems to work ok so I don't know why this was done?
Second, Floppies_only, good tip! The Hard Drive main cable had a dogey pin. I didn't need to try another cable to find it, I could see it when I inspected the cable. A replacement cable is now in place and the machine now always recognises Drive C.
Third, now with the cable fixed I have found the disk formatting program. It is at C800:5. BTW The Hard Disk controller card is a Data Technology Corp DTC5150CX . The BIOS is BXD07. Switch info is at
http://stason.org/TULARC/pc/hard-di...Y-CORPORATION-Two-MFM-ST506-412-driv-186.html
When the disk formatting program is activated it says..
Hard Disk Formatting Utility V3.0
"This program will erase all data on the specified hard disk.
Enter a hard disk number (1 to 8 ) or press "q" to quit:"
Err..and this is where I've got to. It seems there is a table of sorts (in the Controller manual?) listing 8 types of drive? Anyone have that information?
The drive connected to the controller is the good old Seagate ST-225. 4 heads, 615 cylinders, 20MB.
http://stason.org/TULARC/pc/hard-drives-hdd/seagate/ST225-21MB-5-25-HH-MFM-ST412.html
That the ST-225 is supported by the card is suggested by the dip switch settings for the BXD07 BIOS. The first setting (Drive type 0) is for a 20MB/4 cylinder/613 drive which seems like my ST-255 (but 613 not 615?).
I don't know which number to select though. I thought drives 1 to 8 might correspond to "Drive type" in the BXD07 switch table but I'm asked to enter a disk number "1 to 8" and there are 16 drive types there! Also, they start with 0 not one.
I'm not in a great hurry so I thought I'd see if anyone has any ideas before I give it a go (probably by pressing 1). Is there anyway you can read these tables by peeking at the bios with debug? Can I stuff hard hard drives up by making the wrong selection here?
One last thing. The large HD I have. It's a Quantum Q540. 8 heads, 512 Cylinders. The thing is massive!
Tez