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Configure Western Digital MFM controller

alejack12001

alejack12001

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Joined
Jul 26, 2020
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Location
Fredericksburg, VA
I need some help from the forum regarding configuring a Western Digital WD1002A-WX1 MFM controller for one MFM hard drive, ST251-1. The manual I have was written by Olivetti, which addresses a Superbios setting, a "G" setting, and "H" setting, which I don't have clue what G or H represent. I have the BIOS enabled. Picture of the board is shown below.

Apparently, there is a W6 setting where-by-which either an 8 head drive with RWC (???) is supported or 16 head hard drive supported (head select 3 as was shown in the manual). Right, now, I have this setting set to the 8 head because the drive has 819 cylinders and 6 heads.

At first, I had all the S1 jumpers set to be jumped 1-4 and it resulted in the same response as the following setting where I reset S1 to have jumpers only on pins 3 and 4 since according to table "H" that is the correct setting for the drive configuration. This "H" table is the configuration mentioned earlier and is the only one that seems to support the physical settings for the hard drive. With the settings whether the first or second, the displayed cylinders are 614 and heads 4 which are addressing an ST225 shown by Seagate's OnTrack.

BIOS Chip mounted to the card ahs the following number: 62-000094-002

Current settings:
W3 closed BIOS Enabled
W4 Pins 2 & 3 closed I/O Port address 320h
W5 hard-wired Pins 1 & 2 closed
W6 8-head hard drive w/RWC supported Pins 2 & 3 closed
W7 Hard Drive Interrupt is IRQ 5 Pins 1 & 2 closed
W8 Single controller setting, primary controller Pins 2 & 3 closed
S1 Jumpers 5-8 are open
S1 Jumpers 3 & 4 closed and 8 is open. According to table H the jumpers 3, 4 & 8 address drive 0.

So, how do I get the correct setting for the 819 cylinders and 6 heads?
IMG_3469.JPG
 
I don't know at this point, however, I must mention that the card is being used in an AT&T 6300 an XT clone. I noticed the hint document mentioned AT.
 
It mentions scsi too. Just ignore the sections that don’t apply to what you’re working on. Page 27 the appendix lists the setting for dynamic.
 
W6 changes pin 2 on the 34 pin connector from RWC (reduced write current) that was used on early drives, to 3rd head select (3 bits, needed for 8 to 16 head drives) as used on later drives. You probably want it set to the head select 8 setting.

It looks like there are three possible bios revisions for that card, the 'superbios' rev, H rev, and G rev.
Try going into debug and entering 'G=C800:5.' If it's the 'superbios' revision, it should bring up a low-level format menu.
 
Ok thanks. The Olivetti manual is very sparse with instructions. If superbios then I would use superbios table for config if other then I would see g rev or h rev. Is there low level format with those rev’s?
 
If you’ve got a new enough version of the BIOS that it supports dynamic configuration it doesn’t matter what’s in the table, as long as the controller supports the number of head, tracks, etc. The table is only used if you don’t have a new enough BIOS or if you don’t want to type in the values, then it can use one of the predefined in the table.

If you want to know what is in the table, you can use speedstor with the command line /romlist and it will tell you.

3C758FE4-DF34-4FE1-BA98-B0FE7CB23DFB.jpeg

9ACFE68A-8C51-4BCE-A0A9-19033AC072A3.jpeg
 
Okay, I am going to see if the card does in fact have the superbios and can configure the drive. Thank you all for your input. I'll let everyone know if I was sucessful.
 
Well, the superbios is on the card as was predicted. I used it to conduct a low-level format of the drive then used fdisk and format followed by sys to make it bootable. Thanks to all who assisted here with this configurement.
 
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