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- Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware
- Path: sparky!uunet!decwrl!pa.dec.com!rdg.dec.com!uvo.dec.com!e2big.mko.dec.com!regent.enet.dec.com!gettys
- From: gettys@regent.enet.dec.com (Bob Gettys)
- Subject: Re: Is the maxtor 213 meg a good buy at $470?
- Message-ID: <1992Aug27.033810.14163@e2big.mko.dec.com>
- Sender: guest@e2big.mko.dec.com (Guest (DECnet))
- Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation
- References: <jpl1.714232047@Ra.MsState.Edu> <1992Aug25.203948.6150@bnlux1.bnl.gov>
- Date: 26 AUG 92 23:30:29
- Lines: 63
-
-
- In article <1992Aug25.203948.6150@bnlux1.bnl.gov>, thomas@bnlux1.bnl.gov (Richard A. Thomas) writes...
- >jpl1@Ra.MsState.Edu (John Patrick Lestrade) writes:
- >: I will also order a new controller card because mine does not have a
- >: "user-definable" drive type 47. (mine is pre-defined) But first
- >: I will try to find a "close" type and see if I can get it to run --
- >: with maybe the loss of a few megs. any comments?
- >: patrick
- >
- >I just purchased a Maxtor 7213A IDE drive, and after staying up
- >until 3 a.m., I have some questions.
- >
- >I already had a Maxtor LXT-200A IDE drive and a Miniscribe IDE
- >controller.
- >
- >First question. Both of these drives require that you use a
- >user-defined type 47, and my AMI BIOS allows that. What isn't
- >clear is whether Type 47 has to be the same Type 47 for both drives.
- >(Maxtor recommends different definitions since the 7213A holds about
- >10 more MBytes.) So does a BIOS allow Type 47 to mean different
- >things for different disk drives?
- >
- >2. If the answer to 1. is ``yes'', is that ``yes, always'' or ``yes
- >only if they are not hooked up as master and slave on the same IDE
- >controller?
- >
- >3. I ended up making both Type 47s the same (the values recommended
- >for the lower capacity LXT-200A). I made the 7213A the master (factory
- >default jumpers), and added a jumper to the LXT-200A to make it a slave.
- >To keep the cluster size down to 2048 bytes, I made the 7213A a primary
- >partition, "C:", and an extended partition with one logical drive, "D:".
- >I made the LXT-200A one extended partition divided into two logical
- >drives, "E:" and "F:". Sometimes Ctrl-Alt-Del will boot up ok, but
- >usually I get the message instructing me to insert a BOOT disk in drive A:
- >and press any key. I ignore inserting a boot disk and press any key and
- >it boots fine. (There is a long pause after the Ctrl-Alt-Del before it
- >comes up with this message.) What did I do wrong? The controller is
- >the one which came with the LXT-200A, would a newer IDE controller make
- >a difference?
- >
- >By the way, I wasn't getting anywhere until I connected each drive to
- >the controller individually, as a master, and partitioned it and formatted
- >it before reconnecting them together as master and slave. When both
- >were on the controller and the master (7213A) hadn't been partitioned and
- >formated yet, it will usually report that it couldn't access disk 2, or
- >sometimes that there was a HDD controller failure and couldn't access
- >either of them. These message went away after I connected each separately
- >and partitioned and formated them.
-
-
-
- That is the configuration that I am running. And with no problems at
- all. The older LXT213 happens to be the master (it was before) and the new
- LXT7213 is the slave. I just connected it, fdisked it, formatted it, and used
- it. My "controller" card is a cheap "do it all" multi i/o board that I've had
- for about a 2 years. The type 47 issue is bios dependent, but every one I've
- had direct experience with (that even had a type 47) actually has two spots in
- the table for the drive parameters. What you are actually doing when you set it
- up in the cmos is writing various parameter either from rom, or from the
- keyboard into a table in cmos from which the bios takes its info during boot.
- One set of values per disk, two disks, means two sets of values.
-
- /s/ Bob Gettys
-