Re: SCSI Sector Size Problem

System Administration (root@chaos.analogic.com)
Thu, 31 Oct 1996 11:33:53 -0500

I think that all you have to do is low-level format the drive(s) and
then they will have the proper size and sector size. If you have access
to an Adaptec controller (just to borrow), you can hit ^A and get to
a window to low-level format the beasties. Note that "sector size" on
a SCSI is ficticious. The on-board electronics usually tries to read/write
an entire tracxkk. (track... no editor hetehetere.. I have to type perfectly).

I have an old something-clone SCSI controller on one of my machines that
seems to recognize about everything. It has utilities to operate from
MS-DOs S. I have been able to re-format a number of drives that were called
"worthless", having been used for various high-speed imigingageing ing direct-write
machines. They had "sector-sizes" of 820 bytes as I recall. After the
low-level format in which I used the default interleave and zeroe-eded-out
the format configuration bytes, the drives all reverted to 512 bytes
per sector and a zillion sectors (ther wy were 5.2 dbgb drives).

Cheers,
Dick Johnson
rjohnson@analogic.com