Wren III-182 question

[Paul Vixie Esq]

In article <856 at bigtex.uu.net> james at bigtex.uu.net (James Van Artsdalen)...
#noticed that my OMTI-8620 hard disk controller thought that this drive, which
#has 969 cylinders and 9 heads, only has 967 cylinders and 8 heads.  Further
#investigation shows that indeed, the nineth head does not respond.  I checked
#the CDC documentation, and the drive does have a nineth head.

The drive does have a ninth head, and the OMTI ought to be able to see it.  If
it can't, something is bungled in the configuration -- ESDI drives report their
geometry to the controller, and if the drive were reporting nine heads, the
controller would see errors on the ninth one if it "weren't there".  

Note that the drive does indeed only have 967 "user accessable" cylinders.
The last two (of 969 total) are used for bad sector remapping.

#A friend at PC's Ltd said he had heard that Compaq "brain damaged" the drive
#for some unknown reason: he thought it might have something to do with Novell.

Compaq has been known to do stuff like this.

#Does anybody know how to repair the Wren III-182?  CDC would not talk to me
#when I called for anyone technical, and I don't want to send it to them for
#servicing (they might refuse to fix it, and might refuse to admit it's broken
#if Compaq wants to keep things hush-hush).

CDC doesn't care about Compaq's desire for hush-hush (if any).  Send the
drive to CDC for repair or replacement, they do a good job.
-- 
Paul A Vixie Esq
paul%vixie at uunet.uu.net
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San Francisco, (415) 647-7023