having cabling I had the same idea until I switched the drive ID from 0 to 1. The BUSY light is now off and remains off on the drive until I tell DISKUTIL that the drive I want to work with is on channel 1 and not channel 0, at which point it probes for the drive (if it finds nothing it says the drive is not ready and asks to specify another drive), the BUSY light comes on and we get the same issue as before where it knows there's a drive but it can't format and says the disk is bad. The light WILL go out if the system reset is toggled which is probably because the controller is reset in the process. The cabling is keyed on the edge connector side and pin 1 is noted on both the ribbon cable and the header on the disk controller so there's no probable chance the wiring is wrong. I don't see why it could be trying to find an existing error map AFTER I specify what the factory had printed on it. It would make more sense to search for that BEFORE it prompted me to specify it. (http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a166/ballsandy/Computer%20related/CRW_778 9.jpg) It could be ignoring it like you said but there's no way to try with a differently formatted disk at this time. Unsure if WRITE PROTECT is stuck. Seagate's own papers don't even mention a write protect jumper so I assume it simply does not exist for the drive. (ftp://ftp.seagate.com/techsuppt/mfm/st225.txt) I also don't see WRITE PROTECT listed as a pin on the ST506/412 interface cabling.