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Hard drive problems (again)

Hi, maybe of no help but I am sure I had a WD1002-WX2 disc controller in my first PC, an Amstrad 1512. I can remember it having an onboard BIOS from which you could define exactly what type of disc it was, heads, cylinders etc. I used it to work with discs from 3MB up to 20MB or so. It would low level format the disc which was handy when I used to get given crashed drives and swap the platters around to get them working. Just blow out all the aluminium dust and off they went again. Not a good idea for data but ok for storing programs. Sure I still have the controller, but where????? Bob
 
Amazing, just found the user's manual, it was a WD1002A-WX1. To format you use debug with various parameters then -g=c800:5. The BIOS seems to be part number 62-000094-031. There are also jumpers to set four default drive sizes. Bob
 
woodchips said:
amazing, just found the user's manual, it was a wd1002a-wx1. To format you use debug with various parameters then -g=c800:5. The bios seems to be part number 62-000094-031. There are also jumpers to set four default drive sizes. Bob
Click to expand...
wd1002a-wx1 ╪ wd1002-wx2

They are different controllers.
 
josephdaniel said:
That' the dame debug command that I used and it would not let me change the drive parameters. Where are the jumpers to elect drive sizes, I only saw one jumper on this card.
Click to expand...

As Stone has mentioned the manual he has found isn't for your card unfortunately.

On later WD cards it'd ask "Do you want to dynamically configure this drive?" and if you select yes you can enter in whatever parameters you want and the configuration gets saved on the start of the primary hard drive. Yours was really designed to drive the 10Mb drives of the period - but if you get the ROM edited/reburned (someone might post you it) it'll format and run the ST225 to full capacity.

Alternatively if you have $$: http://www.ebay.com/itm/8-BIT-MFM-H...mputing_Parts_Accessories&hash=item460498b1b0

Tempted to get one myself - 'new unused' with manual :eek: I sold my last XTGen in a 5160 :(
 
I've got a WD1002A-27X that works perfectly and can probably give you 32MB from your 21MB MFM drive. But it's an RLL controller which is why I said probably.
 
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