Re: sector size of 2068?

Richard Waltham (dormouse@farsrobt.demon.co.uk)
Fri, 28 Aug 1998 19:53:11 +0100 (BST)

Richard B. Johnson wrote:
>
> On Fri, 28 Aug 1998, Maciej W. Rozycki wrote:
>
> > On Thu, 27 Aug 1998, Richard B. Johnson wrote:
> >
> > > In the SCSI controller BIOS setup, low-level format the drive using
> > > your new controller. The drive was apparently low-level formatted on
> > > on different controller, or simply contains a manufacturers' test
> > > pattern. If you don't have a controller that shows a startup
> > > window that says "^B or ^A to enter setup.." or something like
> > > that, you need to format the drive on some machine that does.
> >
> > Wouldn't `scsiformat' utility from 'scsiinfo' package be sufficient for
> > this task? This would allow disks to be formatted without troubles
> > regardless of the firmware capabilities.
> >
> I didn't know it even existed! If there is some way to send 'raw'
> commands to SCSI from user-mode, all you have to do is execute
> the 'format unit' command and wait until it's done. Default parameters
> including 0 for an interleave (which means default) will create
> a workable (perhaps not optimum) disk.
>

What about the Mode Select/Mode Sense commands Format Device page. One item
in here specifies the number of bytes/sector - it actually says "data bytes
per physical sector". This needs altering to reformat to an alternate number
of bytes per sector, doesn't it?

You will may need to alter "sectors per track" as well or you will probably
loose 3/4 of your current capacity!

There must be plenty of disk experts who should be able to give a definitive
answer/method for reformatting to a different number of byte/sector lurking
somewhere on this list

Bye for now
Richard

>
> Cheers,
> Dick Johnson
> ***** FILE SYSTEM WAS MODIFIED *****
> Penguin : Linux version 2.1.118 on an i586 machine (66.15 BogoMips).
> Warning : It's hard to remain at the trailing edge of technology.
>
>
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-- 
 Richard Waltham   |              Work: richard@digitalinterface.demon.co.uk
   At home in      |              Home:        dormouse@farsrobt.demon.co.uk
 Southampton UK    |                              100421.1276@compuserve.com


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