8" drive on PC troubleshooting - test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

1 Mar 2005

...
 From: "Vintage Computer Festival" <vcf at
siconic.com>

On Tue, 1 Mar 2005, Dwight K. Elvey wrote:

   There is a table that one stores the step rate
 for the drive. You need to alter the value for
 slower drives, like your 8 inch. I forget where
 is it but it is in that lower area someplace
 ( 40:xxx or something ). It isn't a problem
 of the controller. It should work with any controller,
 you just need to find the table and change it.
 It has been a while since I've fiddle with it
 to make my drives step with less noise ( and wear ). 
OIC.

Are there any drives that don't require such a modification of the stepper
table?  I'm not sure what drives I'm using.  They're mounted in an
enclosure and I'm too lazy to dismount them to check.

Hi
 For 8 inchers, I doubt that their are any that
are fast enough for the standard 5-1/4 step rates.
 There was a program out there that modifies the
step rates. I know it is on the web someplace.
As I recall, it would try the full span of steps
available and watch for errors. I would guess that
this would work for your 8 inchers, even though,
it was inteneded to be used to optimize the steps
for faster drives.
 Maybe one of the others can remember what it is called.
Of course, you are always the one that states that one
should do a good google search first ;)
Dwight