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RLL Hard Drive troubles

G

generic486

Experienced Member
Joined
Mar 30, 2012
Messages
290
Location
Australia
Hello to everyone here. I am new here however I have been interested in vintage computers for a while.

Today I recieved, though a long and tedious process, a untested WD1002-27X RLL controller for my three untested rll/mfm hard drives.
I first tried the controller with the most compatible drive a Miniscribe 6128. I slotted the card into a 8bit slot and started it up. (It might be important to mention that I connected the hard drive to another pSU and let it do it's seek test before I booted my 486 and it sounds fine). It flashed for a second and then it just didn't flash anymore after than. It could be heard running but no acsess to the drive at all. I tryed with the other two but to no avail. The 6128 sounds fine. Although untested I know this as a video on Youtube shows a similar drive booting up (a miniscirbe 6053) and sounded uncanny to the 6128. (and this drive 6053 worked). The original hard drive card in the 486 was a IDE PLUS v3. I removed it before installing the new card. I also can't load a boot disk for some strange reason. Intersting to note is the Miniscirbe would not flash when connectoed to computer and turned on when the select jumper was removed.
My WD1002 has Jumpers on W3 , pins 2 and 3 of W6, W8 and W4 and on 2, 4 and 8 of s1. I really hope you can help me get this working other wise it's $40 down the drain and a anchor. :(

p.s the mobo is a ISA-486 if that helps.
 
Thanks. It was not jumpered. However I jumpered it and still just that small flash. I think I might just get somewhere with this card if I could boot a floppy but I can't seem to. (and it's the floppy is attached to the IDE PLUS v3.)
 
You could try booting from an IDE drive. It should be OK next to the RLL card. If that shows any signs of a conflict you can disable the IDE interface and then see how the RLL acts.
 
1. Are you using the correct cables from the controller to the drive? A hard drive control cable is not the same as a floppy cable, even though they look very similar. Are they attached correctly? (i.e. do you have one end reversed?)

2. If you leave the controller in, but remove the power connection from the hard drive, will the system boot from floppy? If not, if you leave the controller in, but disconnect both cables from the hard drive, will the system boot?

What we're trying to determine here is if it's the controller, drive or cables that's putting a dent in your fun.
 
Chuck(G) said:
A hard drive control cable is not the same as a floppy cable, even though they look very similar.
Click to expand...
Not quite correct. A single drive, straight hard drive control cable is exactly the same as the controller to B: section of a floppy cable. But you already know this. Many times I have used a floppy cable when I haven't been able to locate the HD control cable.
 
You're right of course. But the "Drive A/drive 0" distinction (i.e. the drive after the twist) is sometimes lost on people and that, of course, is what I was trying to point out. Straight-through is straight-through.
 
Good news. I managed to get it to low level format using the debug command based in the controller. So now I know both devices are working.
However to achieve this I had to disable the hard drive in my Ami Bios (486) and boot using a FD of 5.00. However the problem still remains that my BIOS is not recognising the drive. I typed in all the cylinder, heads and sectors and the landing and precomp but still no luck. Have not tested the other two but that is good news anyway. Thanks everyone so far. BTW, just incase you were worried, the Miniscribe 6128 was a top of the range drive and is capable of self parking.
Also when I tried it in dos it just gave me invalid drive specification becuase the bios thinks there is no hard drive.
 
Duh..... those BIOS settings are not for RLL controllers. When using an RLL drive/controller (with it's BIOS enabled) you always leave the drive type disabled. :) Welcome to RLLing.
 
I'm a noob at this. So tell me dear sir, how do I configure the setting for the drive then? Oh and the RLL drive seems to clash with IDE. It just keeps telling me to wait.
 
I like to use SpeedStor. I don't really fully understand translation and all that crap :) but what it amounts to is that the controller lies to the BIOS about what the particular drive really is as far as cyllinders, heads and sectors. It does this in order for the BIOS to function with its existing drive table and this kinda foreign drive. IDE drives are handeled like this too, but most boards can autodetect the IDE untruths about their geometry and we lowly humans don't need to get involved. And, there are other routines as well. It's really a load of crap and RLLs are at the top of the heap. Try SpeedStor or something similar, let it set the drive type, don't argue with it, it's usually right. :) BTW, this controller works better in an XT or PC which is what it was designed for, anyway, as these machines don't have built-in drive tables to fight with and the controller's BIOS is free to operate without outside interference.

The 'wait' message might mean that you need to disable the HDD interface on the IDE card. You don't have an IDE drive in there, do you?
 
I'm getting a little confused here.

The 1002-27X is an 8-bit controller intended for systems in the XT family.

You can use it on your 486, but beware of collisions between the 486's onboard BIOS and the BIOS on the 27X. Your 486 BIOS knows absolutely nothing about the 27X port and IRQ usage, so it's a little naive to expect it to work the 27X.

So you probably should start off by setting your native 486 controller to "none" or "disabled" and enable the 27X, low-level format, then FDISK and FORMAT it using DOS booted from a floppy.

One step at a time...
 
Thanks about speedstor just gotta plop in a floopy.
Chuck(G)-what about jumper 8 on S1. It says AT Mode enabled and when the jumper is removed it is XT mode enabled. I have the jumper on. I'll see how it goes. Other RLL cards were really expensive. (like 120 dollars) Have a look at statson.org and search for my controller and scroll down.
 
Thanks Stone. It's just doing a surface scan as I can't be bothered putting in the bad tracks manually. I'll give you an update when I have configured it.:p
 
I have a 16-bit RLL controller if you're interested. It's a WD1006V-SR2 and I have one used and one NOS, still sealed, NIB. I also have the same controller, used, without the floppy. It's a WD1006V-SR1.
 
Oh dear. I did a initialisation and I have some bad news. I went and did the scan and then to went to do a partition and it turns out the it says "unable to access partition table. Drive is unusable"
I think it's dead. :(
 
generic486 said:
Thanks about speedstor just gotta plop in a floopy.
Chuck(G)-what about jumper 8 on S1. It says AT Mode enabled and when the jumper is removed it is XT mode enabled. I have the jumper on. I'll see how it goes. Other RLL cards were really expensive. (like 120 dollars) Have a look at statson.org and search for my controller and scroll down.
Click to expand...

That jumper has nothing to do with AT compatibility per se, but rather the interpretation of ISA bus B8. On the 5150 this pin is unused; on the 5160, it is used only for cards in the 8th slot; on the 5170 it's used to signal "zero wait state (0WS)", which can improve the performance on the 5170 over the 5160. I suspect that if you buzz the jumper pins out at W8, one of them will terminate at B8.

The eBay prices are the typical scalper's ware. RLL AT-style controllers are not rare at all--they're far more common than XT ones. I just took a look in my ISA hellbox full of cards and found two WD1006V-SR2, one DTC 6287 and one 7287 as well as some SMS OMTI RLL controller.

Finding good ESDI controllers is a lot harder.

They're not that hard to find and I'll wager some of the people here would be happy to sell you one.

Any particular reason why you need RLL?
 
Chuck(G) said:
Any particular reason why you need RLL?
Click to expand...
To test the drives. They are RLL and the fact that I live in Australia does not help. No controller cards have come up here on ebay or other sites and I have been looking for a long time. But now I suppose I don't need one anymore.;)
 
Just a personal note about SpeedStor... I only use it to LLF the drive and set the Type. I always use FDISK to partition it. :) Give that a try.
 
Any RLL-rated hard drive can be used with an MFM controller. Sometimes an MFM-rated drive can be successfully used with an RLL controller--results differ from one drive manufacturer to another.
 
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