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Lisa Low Level Formatting with BLU?

snuci

snuci

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Joined
Nov 22, 2012
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Richmond Hill, Ontario, Canada
I have posted in another thread my success with low-level formatting a Widget drive but I haven't tried a Profile yet. I just recently purchased a Lisa 2/10 with two Profiles (untested as the person didn't have cables) in unknown condition and I forgot to ask the model numbers before packing so I'm not sure if they are 5MB, 10MB or both. Because of my new found interest in Profiles, that was why I posted about the two drive on eBay in another thread. I guess there's not much interest or people would rather fix the ones they have without having to buy spare parts.

I recently bought a Zilog Z8613TS (the piggyback Z8 chip) so I'd like to test out low level formatting with BLU and the appropriate ROMs for the 5MB and 10MB Profiles. I could only find the 5MB LLF ROM at a Bitsavers site. Does anyone have a copy of the 10MB LLF ROM? I'm assuming it's okay to ask since the other is publicly posted.

I'm going to post to the cc-talk list as I'm not sure if James is here. His software has saved a Widget drive for me so I am grateful. A little while ago I bought an X/Profile so I feel I am supporting his work, at least a little.

Has anyone tried to low-level formatted a Profile with BLU? If so, how easy/difficult was it and were you successful?

Thanks in advance for any info.
 
I have a comatose 10MB Profile too, which I would like to resurrect attempting a LLF. I've been searching for that ROM dump for a couple of years without success, wish you more luck.

I don't know what would happen if I used the 5MB LLF ROM in a 10MB unit but I feel brave enough to try. Could you please post the link to that 5MB ROM? I've searched the Apple directory at Bitsavers but couldn't locate it...
Thanks.
 
Gabriele72 said:
Could you please post the link to that 5MB ROM? I've searched the Apple directory at Bitsavers but couldn't locate it...
Thanks.
Click to expand...

The exact directory is http://bitsavers.informatik.uni-stuttgart.de/pdf/apple/disk/profile/firmware/ I believe it's 341-0080B that is the latest. I have not been able to find the product number for the 10MB ROM either so I could search for that. If anyone knows, maybe that will help.

I suggest you look up a directory or two and poke around on that site. There's some great information there and I just re-discovered that site this morning looking for the ROM so I'll be digging in soon myself.

Hope this helps.
 
Thanks!
However, I thought 341-0080 was the controller firmware ROM and not the special formatter ROM... have you tried it?
 
I've got other projects on the go at the moment so I'm unable to do much with the Lisa. However I too have a 10MB Profile I'd like resurrect at some stage so I'm following these threads with interest.

Tez
 
Gabriele72 said:
Thanks!
However, I thought 341-0080 was the controller firmware ROM and not the special formatter ROM... have you tried it?
Click to expand...

You are correct (I think)! But if you look at: http://mirrors.apple2.org.za/Apple ...pherals/Hard Drives/Apple ProFile/ROM Images/

They list a "Apple ProFile Diag ROM - Low Level Format.bin" and the 341-0080-B.bin and they are different. The 341-0080-B.bin here and the one I pointed to earlier is the same. So, I'm betting on the former now (if the description of the ROM file is accurate). Unfortunately, I don't have a 5MB Profile yet. I only have a 10MB. It's working fine so I don't want to mess with that.

I'm hoping someone can conform and find a 10MB ROM.

From what I read (and can't confirm or deny), if you use the 5MB Profile LLF ROM on a 10MB, it will only show as a 5MB Profile. There was some talk of modifying the 5MB LLF ROM to work with the 10MB Profile but I don't think it materialized.

The hunt continues...

Hope this helps.
 
Well, well, well. Look what was just uploaded yesterday at http://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/pdf/apple/disk/profile/firmware/

P10LLF_4.0_faa9b356819e4863b6415d43ce214975.BIN 28-May-2013 16:24 4.0K
PRO10_Z8_RW_3d574129d0ea3757ff8827df3185daaa.BIN 28-May-2013 16:24 4.0K

If it was someone from here, thank you! Seems pretty coincidental that it was uploaded after I asked here.

I may be making assumptions but it looks real until I try it. I have the Zilog Z8613TS that is 4K for this 10MB Profile ROM. I wonder if I can use this same piggyback chip for the 2K ROM for the 5MB Profile or if I need to get a Zilog Z8603 with the 2K ROM? In the past, I've used bigger 21xx EPROMS and just padded it to fit (in this case, I would copy it (2k) twice to a new binary file making it 4K). Would anyone know?

Thanks again.
 
Thanks Al. I have a 4K Z8. Oddly enough (as shown below) it came with a 32K eprom. Looks a little newer and different but it looks authentic so I'm not 100% that this will work but it's worth a shot (if the Profile is shot).

Z8613TS.JPG

The 10MB LLF Profile ROM is 4K but the 5MB Profile ROM is only 2K. So looking at datasheets, the Z8603 will address 2K while the Z8613 will address 4k hence my question on if I can use this with a 2k ROM. I guess there's only one way to find out if this is all BLU needs.
 
snuci said:
Well, well, well. Look what was just uploaded yesterday at http://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/pdf/apple/disk/profile/firmware/
Click to expand...

Great! If that's it... many thanks to the mysterious uploader!

Concerning the Z8 chip, there's a good chance the piggybacked Z8 found in some versions of the Widget HD can be used. So, if one has a Lisa 2/10, he probably has everything that's needed to LLF the ProFile.

Edit: after reading the HDA formatter manual, it seems that 341-0080-B is the standard firmware P/N, not the formatting ROM.
 
Last edited:
Gabriele72 said:
Edit: after reading the HDA formatter manual, it seems that 341-0080-B is the standard firmware P/N, not the formatting ROM.
Click to expand...

Yes, right. So if one goes by the file names:

The 5MB Profile Low Level Format ROM is: http://mirrors.apple2.org.za/Apple ...Apple ProFile Diag ROM - Low Level Format.bin

And the 10MB Profile Low Level Format ROM is: http://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/...0LLF_4.0_faa9b356819e4863b6415d43ce214975.BIN

The 5MB LLF ROM is 2k for the Z8603 and the 10MB LLF ROM is 4k for the Z8613. The other ROMs in those directories are the normal ROMs for their respective drive.

Until someone tries it, that's the theory. Hope that clears things up.
 
Well, I have two bad 5MB Profiles and the right chips now so I did some testing with BLU. Unfortunately, I couldn't get either of the Profiles up but we'll get to that soon.

I have a Zilog Z8613TS. This is the 4k piggyback chip that's supposed to only work with the 10MB Profiles but I had a hunch and tried a few things first before I would need to start looking for the Z8603 (that is 2K and works with 5 MB Profiles). Here's what I tried:

Programmed a 2716 with the 2K size 5MB LLF ROM image. While I've been studying the Z8 piggyback data sheets, it's not too specific for this type of chip and wouldn't say if it would accept smaller chips. I figured the ROM might be small so maybe a 2K chip would work? Well BLU wouldn't identify the drive after several attempts so I considered this as not working.

Programmed a 2732 with 2k 5MB LLF ROM image x 2. Essentially, you make a 4k ROM image by copying the 2k file twice into a new 4k binary file. Low and behold, it worked! BLU identifies the drive as a Profile and I was able to do a few low level formats (all, however, not working).

Programmed a 2732 with the 4K 10MB LLF ROM image. I figure that since the last chip identified the drive properly, maybe this worked with both drives. After all, would Apple have to switch between piggyback chips depending on the drive they are diagnosing? Apparently so. This worked but identified the Profile as a 10MB Profile. The last ROM said just "Profile" so I figured since it was the first one, they didn't identify the size. The block count was too big (I'm guessing double), so I didn't try anything but just removed it.

I then stuck with the 2K (x2) 5MB LLF ROM. While it identified the drive every time properly, the LLF was not consistent. I would add the jumper when asked and format then when remove the jumper to write the spare sectors and it would fail with anywhere from Error 000008 to 00000A (number of zeros not exact). It would fail sometimes on the format part but more often, it would fail at the spare sectors portion after it had finished.

I tried to fire up Lisa 3.1 and see if the first diskette would format it but no luck there. It errored out when trying to format.

At some time, I may try hooking up a serial cable to BLU and see what diagnostic information I could see. It may be useful. This was my "better" Profile. The other Profile power supply blew a cap so I swapped hard disk units but this one would complete the format and just sit there when trying to do the spare sectors portion.

Both drive started by not being able to initialize. When doing the initial drive check, it would stop for long portions of time retrying bad sectors (I suspect) and never completed so that the Lisa would see them. At least BLUE saw them and the LLF ROM bypassed the initial checks (the drive had to be powered on when BLU was already up).

Anyway, I thought I'd share my experiences. I may try this again but I think both drives are toast. Thanks to James MacPhail for providing such a tool even though it can't seem to resurrect those two Profiles.
 
snuci said:
...Anyway, I thought I'd share my experiences. I may try this again but I think both drives are toast. Thanks to James MacPhail for providing such a tool even though it can't seem to resurrect those two Profiles.
Click to expand...

It's good to share these experiences. It all adds to the knowledge base.

Tez
 
snuci said:
Anyway, I thought I'd share my experiences. I may try this again but I think both drives are toast. Thanks to James MacPhail for providing such a tool even though it can't seem to resurrect those two Profiles.
Click to expand...

Thank you for sharing, seems the 4K ROM Z8 solution could be an universal one. Just two questions: what kind of Lisa did you use, a 2/5 or a 2/10 using the addon parallel port card or a 2/10 with a modified internal parallel port? Now that we have the formatting ROMs I'd like to also try the "classic" solution using an Apple III, do you know where I could download a dump of the LLF program for the Apple III?
 
Gabriele72 said:
Thank you for sharing, seems the 4K ROM Z8 solution could be an universal one.
Click to expand...

Without being successful, I'm not sure this is, in fact, the case. I contacted the BLU author and he's never used a 4K Z8 like that so he can't confirm.

Gabriele72 said:
Just two questions: what kind of Lisa did you use, a 2/5 or a 2/10 using the addon parallel port card or a 2/10 with a modified internal parallel port?
Click to expand...

I tried both a 2/5 with on-motherboard parallel port and a 2/10 with a parallel port card.

Gabriele72 said:
Now that we have the formatting ROMs I'd like to also try the "classic" solution using an Apple III, do you know where I could download a dump of the LLF program for the Apple III?
Click to expand...

I also have an Apple III but I don't have a Profile card so I can't try this route. Even if I had the card, I don't have the software.

Hope this helps and good luck!
 
I was trying to format one of my Profiles, and had the same experience as Snuci... 4k Z8 w/ the 5mb formatting rom image written 2x. Upon power up the heads get moved to track 0, the formatting part of the routine in BLU works, but it always fails at the "end" of the spare table init. I tried moving the optical encoder a bit to shift where the tracks end up, and could change the error code from 00000003 to 00000001, but it would never succeed. It did this with 2 different ST506 mechanisms.

I'm reluctant to try formatting one of the working disks.... I've swapped controllers and power supplies, my next step will be to try and swap the analog board on the drive itself.

Thanks,

-J
 
Tried swapping the analog board from another mechanism... no change. The LLF finishes, then when the surface scan for the spare table gets to the last track it bombs out with a status 00000003, 00000002, or 00000001.

After reading the profile formatting docs from Apple I'm not sure what this status means in BLU.

I'll ask for some advice on the Lisa mailing list (the author of BLU is on there) and reply with any advice they give.

-J
 
Update: I was able to refurb 2 5mb profiles, and one 10mb profile using BLU over the weekend. One drive did take two attempts, however I can confirm that BLU is able to LLF both the 5 and 10mb Profiles, using either a 2k Z8, or 4k Z8 (with the 2k rom contents duplicated).

Thanks,

-J
 
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