MFM/RLL data recovery - test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

5 Apr 2005

On Tue, Apr 05, 2005 at 03:57:24PM -0500, cctalk-request at classiccmp.org wrote:

...
  Wait -- the Miniscribes are MFM, yes?  You should be
testing them with the WD 
 controller, not the RLL controller. 
No, they are RLL.  8438 are RLL variant of the 8425.  They ran for years
with the 27X controller in my family's XT :)

...
  Also, since you're testing on a 386, go into the
386's BIOS and make sure that 
 the 386 isn't trying to map something into the ROM address space that the 
 controllers are trying to use (ie see if it's possible to relocate the 386's 
 onboard IDE controller BIOS location, if it has one -- my Dell 316sx works like 
 this, for example... can also relocate video ROM location too). 
This is a 386 clone board without any onboard peripherals.

...
  If you exhaust all options, send me the MFM drive -- I
have a 100% working 
 WD1002 system set up right now with an ST-225 and could take a look at it for you.

I'll keep that in mind, thanks!

...
  Isn't that only a requirement of SCSI drives?  I
certainly don't have any 
 terminators on my MFM/RLL drives... 
These are terminating resistor packs which are located on the drive PCB,
not a terminator in the SCSI sense where it's plugged into the end of
the chain.  Also, I believe SCSI terminators are composed of
transistors, not resistors.

-- 
Ryan Underwood, <nemesis at icequake.net>