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MFM BIOS setup and format

vladstamate

Experienced Member
Joined
Dec 2, 2012
Messages
197
Location
Orlando, FL, USA
Hi,

I have a 285 PC (Packard Bell Packmate) with a ST-238R drive in it. The BIOS battery died so it does not remember what type it is. How do I set the C/H/S in the BIOS? Do you do that for an MFM drive?

I've made a bootdisk with DOS 6.00. Can the format.exe there deal with an MFM drive?

Regards,
Vlad.
 
Also where might one find a Packard Bell Packmate 286 setup disk? I searched on Google and could not find anything for a machine that old.

Regards,
Vlad.
 
The ST-238R is an RLL drive. What controller do you have? The drive would have about 32MB with RLL controller but only 20MB with MFM controller.

The BIOS should have a set of drive numbers, one of which would be best for that drive. I don't have a reference to what numbers PB assigned to drives. If you have the PB manual, everything will be simple.

DOS 6 format and fdisk will work with MFM and RLL drives. You may have to also do a low level format which is more complex.

Seagate had the drive information on their FTP site. Seagate changed web site layout so the following is copied from a Google cache duplicate. I would suggest you spend the time to confirm at Seagate's web site.
TRACKS ___________________________________2,460
CYLINDERS ________________________________615
HEADS ____________________________________4
DISCS ____________________________________2
 
Seagate had the drive information on their FTP site. Seagate changed web site layout so the following is copied from a Google cache duplicate. I would suggest you spend the time to confirm at Seagate's web site.
TRACKS ___________________________________2,460
CYLINDERS ________________________________615
HEADS ____________________________________4
DISCS ____________________________________2

That worked! Thank you very much. This turned out to be Type 1 in the BIOS and after setting that, the PC booted from the haddisk into DOS 5.00. Thank you again!

Regards,
Vlad.
 
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