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Path: sserve!newshost.anu.edu.au!munnari.oz.au!constellation!osuunx.ucc.okstate.edu!moe.ksu.ksu.edu!vixen.cso.uiuc.edu!uxa.cso.uiuc.edu!rkb55989 From: rkb55989@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Rafal Boni) Newsgroups: comp.os.386bsd.questions Subject: Re: Problems with NetBSD-08 and ESDI - Please help! Date: 13 Aug 1993 17:16:11 GMT Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana Lines: 35 Message-ID: <24gi8r$g71@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu> References: <244ule$cke@netbsd08.telecom.com.au> <BLYMN.93Aug11203209@mallee.awadi.com.au> NNTP-Posting-Host: uxa.cso.uiuc.edu blymn@awadi.com.au (Brett Lymn) writes: >>>>>> On 9 Aug 1993 15:33:52 +0800, tdwyer@netbsd08.telecom.com.au (Terry Dwyer 491 5161) said: >I tried replying via mail to this but I think your reply address (both >with and without netbsd08 in it) are not correct. >TD> off. I have tried alternate sector mapping on and off, set the drive SPT >TD> (according to manufacturers specs) to 34 and 36, used the ESDI bios to >TD> low level format the drive, and WDFMT (a WD utility), to do the same. >TD> There is a difference in the way the formatters work - the BIOS utility >TD> appears to replace every bad sector found with a sector it maps in from >TD> the last two cylinders of the drive hence moving sectors to a different >TD> rack on the disk. The WDFMT util seems to mark the bad sectors (in place), >TD> and leaves the drive geometry alone. Needless to say, none of the above >When I format my esdi (300Meg CDC with DTC controller) I select the >"sector sparing" option which, from what I understand, allocates one >sector per track as spare and will map this sector in if format finds >a bad sector. Sector sparing works well on a disk with few defects. >After formatting with sector sparing I treat the disk as a defect free >disk. >-- >Brett Lymn A very defective disk LOSES big on sector sparing, however. I have a 1007V with a 660MB drive that used to be in a corporate app. server and was taken out due to the increasing number of bad blocks/failures It works great for me [since I don't run 100 users off the system] but when I formateed it with sector sparing I lost ~20 MB off the drive. Now you may think 20 MB/660 isn't too bad... But when you have 3 OSes installed and the complete source for one of them... Things can get tight. Rafal