Uncreative Labs

Posted: Thu Mar 05, 2009 5:08 am

I've been trying to get MFM to co-exist with IDE, i've seen some ways to do it. But my 486 board doesn't like any of them, right now i'm trying a K6-2 500 and need advice on the best way to do this.

Joined: 03 Feb 2006 Posts: 488 Location: pennsylvanai

i CAN SEE A CONFLICT ALREADY.
early on many cards were desiged to " emulate" a wd1003 9 original IBM AT and later 286 controllers)
this emulation , if my old mind recalls correctly, was carried over to the ide cards.. Maybe even to the
integrated ide controllers on the socket 3 and 7 motherboards.
I know an xt controller will work in a pentium. I plopped in a st-225 and mf xt controller
and it booted, I did noit disable anything on the pentium system.
remember that the ll format on a xt and an at are different, meaning you cannot swap controllers.

try going into setup on the pentium ( k6 )
and disabling the controllers IF it is a card and drive from an xt. it does not appear in cmos setup.

if it is some kind of AT/2,3,4 86 drive and 16 bit controller it must be detected by cmos.
Likely with the drive controllers disabled you can still make the system detect it
as far as co-existance, it can be a problem.

from my experience most mfm controllers are pretty much interchangable. one or two exceptions
the wd1003 ( read the chip) is good up to 2:1
the wd1006 chip is 1:1 ( always a smaller card)
and both depend on detection by the cmos

the wd1007 is esdi.cables look the same but cannot be mixed with the wrong card/drive.
it has a bios on the card. and is more like scsi then

I know that this is no a positive /./exadct answer but only suggestions.

Posted: Fri Mar 06, 2009 3:47 am

well i've tried 2 486 boards and no detection, i'm going to try a 386-dx 40 board to get the mfm to recognize, then add in cards one by one if it works. I have an Everex 16bit MFM card with floppy controller on it, it's got a bios, but i can't figure out how to access the low level routine, ive also got a WD1002a card that is xt or at selectable, but i can't figure out which version of the bios it's got on it. i'm not frustrated, but this is VERY confusing.

Joined: 03 Feb 2006 Posts: 488 Location: pennsylvanai

the wd1002 is a xt card (8 bit)
early bios were set for one drive
(smaller than the socket)
most newer bios' or one soldered on will handle to 40m drive
esarler bios would only handle 10 & 20m according to jumper settings.
see the doc I sent to this board, it explains all. Only the top jumper was used
dir the drive first it may NOT need a low level format. 820 6 821 821 11 5
the interleave will not ne 1:1
an xt card will only DO 3:1 ( when used in a xt)

but 4:1 or 5:1 ( i know slower) is MUCH faster. Is required to get and decent response when in a AT MB
because of the mismatch.

the debug routine is in the xt controller bios( see text file on this forum)

with an AT controller ( totally different LL format)
can be done with WDFMT ( AT only)
the wd 1003 chip will do 2:1 the wd1006 will do 1:1.
remember a esdi card is very similar but has a wd1007 chip
and you will get smoke and failure.

some st251 had stiction and needed a rap to start spinning.
if so don't trust it or let it get hot.
the platters get so sticky that the heads actually get stuck on the platters.

Posted: Sat Mar 07, 2009 4:55 am

Good News. I got it to work on the 386-40
I used the Everex EV394-M Controller. It's got a bios, but i have no low-level format software for it. Save disk manager 3.x works great even for NON seagate drives. Just tell it to use non standard drives and manually change the parameters. I have jumper settings for the everex controller. Also found it's SLOT DEPENDANT. it wouldn't work in anything but slot 3 on the board with the video in slot 2 and serial i/o in slot one, any other slots and the controller won't work. I'm thinking about hunting down a server case and putting my 4 floppy controller in it so i can have a 1.44 1.2 and a 360k drive aswell, to facilitate copying things to the xt. Think it will take a scsi controller for windows and such, if i keep the mfm for booting only?

Also Where does one get WDFMT?

Joined: 03 Feb 2006 Posts: 488 Location: pennsylvanai

try thw wd and just do a search on google
hdprep is about the same
send me a private message and I will send it.
http://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/format.html
at the bottom of the page

Posted: Sun Mar 08, 2009 4:06 am

the wd refuses to work in anything better than my xt

Joined: 29 Mar 2008 Posts: 51 Location: czech republic

Many years ago I tried MFM drive with 8bit controller in a Pentium I system and it actually worked. Even W95 booted. I do not remember much, only that it took long time to actually start booting.