Uncreative Labs

Joined: 05 Oct 2007 Posts: 2

Hello All I Just Picked Up A SEAGATE Model ST-412 10MB MFM Drive. And I Wanted To Know What MFM Card Would Be Best For That Drive And Orther MFM Drives If The ST-412 Don't Work!

Thanks,E

Joined: 02 Oct 2004 Posts: 594 Location: Western NC

Practically any MFM controller card should theoretically work on a machine you can select the C/H/S, but FWIW I use a WD1006V-MM2 on a 386sx16 when working on MFM's. BTW--sold a ST-251 (42MB MFM) to my "former" employer last week for $150.00!!! (an 83,333% markup on the $0.18 I paid for it) Smile

Joined: 03 Feb 2006 Posts: 488 Location: pennsylvanai

mfm drives work differently than ids
the mfm do not "translate" the real numbers must be used
the rll drives sometimes are used in a "translation mode"
the low level format is different for 8 bit ( at) and 16 bit ( at.286/386) systems.
if you are curious what might be on the drive.
try it with a fairly new xt controller
the row of 8 jumpers set the DRIVE TABLE
whick included ONLY 2 10m and 2 20 meg.
this is where a drive with a few extra cylinders gets run as on of the standard drives on the controller bios. there is NO setting on the system or the card, set it at the top setting "free format" and it should work or even boot by itself in a xt class pc

IF the drive is or has been low level formatted in an at/286, the real cylinders/heads/ sectors ( almost ALWAYS 17, should be set in the cmos of the 286/at system and it shoukld work as the controllers use the wd 1003 chipset or equivalent
the wd1006 chipset will work but is used for newer drives that work well at 1:1 interleave
DO NOT use a controller with the wd1007 chipset, as this is an ESDI, it will burn out either the drive or the controller. cables are the same./

if you drive was low level formatted with an older controller bios on a xt class system, it may
work but if the controller used when ll formatted had a newer bios the older bios will result in junk and maybe ascii "funny faces"

so consisely: ll fmy at/xt is different and incompatible.
xt drives depend greatl;y on the bios version

at formatted drives and controllers are less fussy, just require the right numbers in th cmos drive table. LL FMT on an AT requires a program like WDFMT of HDPREP.

xt drives require either the program in the controller bios OR
disk manager can be used to do an easy / quick ll fmt. ( don';t let it do more)