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Hard Disk Bad Clusters

Ok, I propose again the question maybe I explained bad ..
Take it easy ...
Can I replace my hard disk MFM and put one IDE with an attached card?
My PC will recognize it?
Thanks for any response.
 
aesis said:
Ok, I propose again the question maybe I explained bad ..
Take it easy ...
Can I replace my hard disk MFM and put one IDE with an attached card?
My PC will recognize it?
Thanks for any response.
Click to expand...

The answer is probably. It depends on what card and drive you have. 8-bit IDE was a thicket of semi-compatible cards and drives. Some cards only worked with specific drives.

Easy way: Pick up an XT-IDE card and a modern flash based system to go with it. Should work great and being newer than other options would have a long life.

Hard way: Find a classic 8-bit IDE card, find a drive that matches its compatibility settings, set the drive to 8-bit mode. Get everything right and it will work but you still will be relying on a 25+ year old hard drive.
 
Aesis, I could low-format a working Seagate ST-225 with Longshine LCS-6210D controller and send it to you. All you have to do then, is to run FDISK and instal DOS. EU shipping would not be soo expensive.
 
archeocamp you have been very kind to offer but unfortunately I only have room for a 3.5 inch, and what you have is a 5.25 right?
 
You are right. Unfortunatelly I do not have 3.5" Miniscribe 8425 anymore .. I had one with zero bad blocks two years ago.
 
I'd go the Easy Way as "Krebizfan" suggested, It'll probably be cheaper in the long run, These old MFM drives are way past their lifetime.
 
Indeed krebizfan you are right, but I need to buy a controller card Hard Disk IDE for XT and try it on my pc but then still I should always buy a hard disk for MB, not GB.
 
Glitch is selling, XT-IDE rev 3 Boards, Kits, and Assembled Units or there is the Lo-Tech boards, If you go the Lo-Tech route you will need to source the parts and build yourself. You can use CF / DOM or IDE hard disks, I used an 80 Gb maxtor in one of my XT 5160's for a long while at one time, A waste of space, yes, but it was going spare at the time.
 
Hi guys,after so long I started to format the MFM disk in question using the classic Debug G = C800 command: 5
I have to say that the disk was formatted without losing a shot,it went smoothly.
Then after having formatted it at low level I used Fdisk,C disk,primary partition,and even here it went in port without any problems.
Then I used the Format C command:
And here comes the bad news..,around 20/25% the head started to return to the starting point each time it passed from one cylinder to another,after 5/6 steps back it came out of the format saying to me that it was not possible to format the disc!
My question is simple,but is it possible that after a low-level formatting without any difficulty jamming with a simple formatting?
Thanks for any reply!
 
aesis said:
My question is simple,but is it possible that after a low-level formatting without any difficulty jamming with a simple formatting?
Click to expand...
Definitely... a LLF does not necessarily reveal all disk problems.

If the first 20% - 25% of the disk is OK you can try a smaller partition that is ~ 20% of the disk size and see how that goes. You may be able to work around a bad section of the disk.
 
Many, if not most, built-in low-level formatting routines do just that--write a format on a track. No checking done. Some MFM/RLL BIOSes did include a read-back check, but not all, under the assumption that the bad sectors would be flawed by the high-level formatting code. Sort of a "I shot an arrow into the air" affair.
 
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