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What could this MFM harddrive be worth?

Well i don't need anymore stuff for this hd as i've put it back in it's packaging, yes i had that too including it's own antistatic bag heh

Anyway a litle offtopic but ohwell... trying to get a st-238 going and if i'm not wrong should produce 30mb or so and i tried to set the settings for it, cyl 615, head 4, sector 26, wcomp 65535 and lzone 670, the seagate program does llf it but for some reason it doesn't go to the end and if i try to fdisk it afterward the app doesn't find the hd so i'm guessing something is wrong, i did thave it llf'd to 20mb before i think and it workd somewhat.

Any ideas?
 
Again, 26 sectors is for an RLL controller. I assume that you're not using one of those. So, try it with 17 sectors/tracks on a standard MFM controller. That would give you (615*17*4)/2 KB or about 21MB. Pretty much the same as an ST225.

You mostly saw ST238R drives, which were intended for use with an RLL controller, but they'll work just fine as MFM drives.
 
Heres a braintumbler for you, the seagate llf program i found says both drives have the same sectors namly 26, honestly doubt seagate made a goofup like that, both drives are in the list 238 and 238r.
 
Oops guess i do mean that one, must have done that page a late night :p and i've never touch the rom on any of my mfm cards besides that i can't see a socketed bios anyway.

I've been using that controller as a test controller, the 238 isn't normaly in that pc.
 
Elvi said:
Heres a braintumbler for you, the seagate llf program i found says both drives have the same sectors namly 26, honestly doubt seagate made a goofup like that, both drives are in the list 238 and 238r.
Click to expand...
Yes. Interesting.
Volume 3 of the 'The PC Engineers Reference Book' is one source that shows the ST-238 and ST-238R as distinct drives.

st238_st238r.jpg
 
modem7 said:
Yes. Interesting.
Volume 3 of the 'The PC Engineers Reference Book' is one source that shows the ST-238 and ST-238R as distinct drives.

st238_st238r.jpg
Click to expand...

There is a story to that. Initial ST238s used coated media and it was felt that the coating didn't have sufficient resolution to support a 7.5MHz data rate. The 238R drives used plated media and so had no problem with the tighter RLL clocks. Eventually, all 238s used plated media and there was essentially no difference.

At least that's what I heard.

On the other hand, I've used lots of non-RLL rated drives (e.g. Maxtor XT1140, Quantum Q540, and yes, even that Rodime) with RLL controllers with no problems at all--not even 25 years after installing them. On the other hand, I've had no success at all with some MFM drives in RLL mode; e.g. there was a real difference between the Tandon TM262 and TM262R, even to the number of usable cylinders.

So when someone asks me if X drive supports RLL, I reply "try it". And--particularly in the case of "Will X drive support ARLL?"
 
Chuck(G) said:
I've used lots of non-RLL rated drives ... with RLL controllers with no problems at all
On the other hand, I've had no success at all with some MFM drives in RLL mode
Click to expand...
Huh?

No success at all with some MFM drives in RLL mode, but lots of non-RLL drives work OK? So, if they're not MFM and not RLL, what are these non-RLL drives? Or are you just saying that some worked and some didn't?

Re the 238[R] I wonder if there actually was a 238... Seagate themselves don't list it on their otherwise quite comprehensive
FTP site, many sites (including Dell) give specs for a 238 that are in fact the specs for a 238R, and that would also explain why the OP's Seagate LLF program shows the same specs for both.

As a point of interest the ST-138 and ST-138R are also both 38MB capacity, one 6 heads MFM and the other 4 heads RLL, so it would also surprise me if the 238 (if it exists and is not just a 238R without the R) was only 25 while the 238R is 38.
 
MikeS said:
Huh?

No success at all with some MFM drives in RLL mode, but lots of non-RLL drives work OK? So, if they're not MFM and not RLL, what are these non-RLL drives? Or are you just saying that some worked and some didn't?
Click to expand...

The latter. Or, in other words--a drive labeled as being RLL will always work in MFM; a drive labeled as MFM will sometimes work in RLL.

Re the 238[R] I wonder if there actually was a 238... Seagate themselves don't list it on their otherwise quite comprehensive FTP site, many sites (including Dell) give specs for a 238 that are in fact the specs for a 238R, and that would also explain why the OP's Seagate LLF program shows the same specs for both.
Click to expand...

The non-R is not listed in my references, but I've heard some people swear they existed--so who are you going to believe--what someone says or your lying eyes? It could also be that they're confused them with the ST225, which did have an "R" version, but was a 2-head drive and not the 4-head non-R version. In fact, the 225 and 225R are both listed as having the same capacity, but one with the usual 17 sectors/track and the other, 31/sectors per track (which few RLL controllers could actually do). Was the ST225R specifically rated for use on Perstor controllers?

As a point of interest the ST-138 and ST-138R are also both 38MB capacity, one 6 heads MFM and the other 4 heads RLL, so it would also surprise me if the 238 (if it exists and is not just a 238R without the R) was only 25 while the 238R is 38.
Click to expand...

The 138 existed in bewildering variety, all basically with about 32/33MB capacity, in the -1 versions, and in MFM, RLL, SCSI and IDE,, but with very different geometries.

So many unanswered questions...
 
Maybe when the ST-238R was released, someone goofed by having the sticker show "ST-238" instead of "ST-238R", and the problem was fixed later.
 
MikeS said:
Re the 238[R] I wonder if there actually was a 238... Seagate themselves don't list it on their otherwise quite comprehensive FTP site . . .
Click to expand...
Just for reference here, my 1993 copy of Glover and Young Pocket PC Ref only lists the 238R. That "Ref" was constantly updated, so you'd think that by 1993 they would have all models listed.
 
modem7 said:
Maybe when the ST-238R was released, someone goofed by having the sticker show "ST-238" instead of "ST-238R", and the problem was fixed later.
Click to expand...
Another possibility is that if someone like Dell calls a 238R a 238 that almost makes it semi-official.

In case someone doesn't know about it, here's Seagate's FTP site with specs on most drives and more:
ftp://ftp.seagate.com/techsuppt
 
There has to be a reason why some drives are labelled "ST-238" and others "ST238R".
I can't see someone at Seagate saying, "Let's order both ST-238 and ST238R stickers and randomly decide on which sticker goes on a particular drive."
And I'm pretty certain someone wasn't trying to save money on sticker production by dropping the "R" suffix.
Someone in the quality control chain would have known that no suffix meant MFM.

The possibilities as I see them, based on earlier posts:

* Labelling: At some point in production (could be any time) "ST-238" stickers were accidentally ordered instead of "ST-238R", and on detection, a decision was made to use those stickers. Seems unlikely given the importance of the "R", but possible.

* Labelling: At some point in production (could be any time) the sticker maker accidentally produced/delivered "ST-238" stickers, and on detection by Seagate, a decision was made to use those stickers. Seems unlikely given the importance of the "R", but possible.

* Certain ST-238R drives didn't 'cut the mustard' and were designated as MFM drives. To adhere to their part number format (of the time), they have to drop the R suffix, and since the capacity is reduced, change the "38" to "25". But they can't label the drives as ST-225 because ST-225 drives have a WPC of 300. So maybe a decision was made to only drop the "R". So, if this possibility is the case, why isn't "ST-238" at the Seagate website (shown as a 17 SPT version of the ST-238R)?

* The ST-238 is in fact an MFM version of the ST-238R. Same capacity, but MFM. Because of the difference in SPT, the two drives have different head/cylinder count. So, if this possibility is the case, why isn't "ST-238" at the Seagate website? This possibility can be tested by someone with an ST-238, by seeing at what maximum head/cylinder can be low-level formatted.
 
Just to add to the discussion here, i've actually llf'd the drive to 26 sectors with no problem BUT when i try to partitision it with fdisk it can't find a drive... if i do 17 sectors fdisk finds it, wonder if it's possible with any other sector numbers.
 
If you're trying to write those 26-sector tracks with a WD1003V-MM1, forget it. Although they may share a common BIOS, the WD1003V-SR1 is the RLL version that will 26 sectors. It's more than software--the hardware makeup of the two controllers is different. Right now, I suspect that the formatter is simply wrapping the format around the index and overwriting itself.
 
Elvi said:
It's a Rodime RO204E MFM fullheight 5.25" drive and from the looks of it the connectors havn't even been used, no scratches, if you don't believe me i can easily take a photo off them ;)

http://electricdreams.ath.cx/hd/rodimer0204e.php?current=3&s2=2

anyway i'm just wondering what this thing could be worth.
Click to expand...

If the price is right and it is still working, I may be interested in purchasing this drive from you. Please contact me if interested.
 
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