About formatting hard disks on the 3B1, ...

[Lenny Tropiano]

In article <1752 at cadillac.CAD.MCC.COM> ned%cad at MCC.COM (CME Ned Nowotny) writes:
|>is it possible to format a hard disk by invoking 'iv' from a floppy
|>disk boot file system?  If so, does 'iv' have the same 1024 cylinder
|>and 8 head limitation that the stock s4diag suffers from?  If not,
|>why can 'iv' format floppy disks and not hard disks?
|>
|>Related comments would be appreciated.
|>

Yes, and no ... iv(1M) can format hard drives, but in it's present
condition, it will not let you format the *first* hard drive, (ie.
type=HD, from the iv-description files).  Basically iv checks to
see if type=HD, and will print the message:  

iv: cannot reformat Winchester disk.

This is to protect someone from accidentally formatting the hard drive.
Probably iv(1M) should check to see if you are trying to format the same
drive with the root partition on it, this way you would be able to format
the hard drive from the Floppy UNIX boot disk.  The iv(1M) command will 
allow you to format the Second Winchester (provided you have the necessary 
hardware modifications to have another hard drive).  You would have to 
set the iv-description file, type=HD2 (or SY).  Then the iv(1M) command 
will happily format the hard drive.  Don't forget 1024 cylinders and 
8 heads is also a hardware barrier.  You need to replace the WD1010 with 
the WD2010 to get >1024 cylinders, and iv will format >1024 cylinders on 
the second hard drive without any problems.

Greater than 8 heads is also a hardware modification, a little more
complicated than swapping a disk controller chip.  You need to do
motherboard wiring for the P5.1 upgrade, or more preferably go straight
to the 2nd hard drive modification that gives you the P5.1 >8 head select 
enhancement plus the additional hard drive modification... 

Again for those who have been sleeping out there ... or just tuned into
this channel, you can get the 2nd hard drive modification plans from
ICUS (e-mail me for more details), or you can wait and John Milton should
have his premade board out shortly ...

That's the scoop...

-Lenny
-- 
Lenny Tropiano             ICUS Software Systems         [w] +1 (516) 589-7930
lenny at icus.islp.ny.us      Telex; 154232428 ICUS         [h] +1 (516) 968-8576
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