Date   : Sun, 03 May 2009 18:42:09 +0100
From   : mike@... (Mike Tomlinson)
Subject: ADFS 1.53 patch

In article <5055be80e6info@...>, Sprow <info@...> writes

>The ATAPI commands need a 16 bit interface, so even if you throw away half
>the drive capacity you can't even issue the command without a 16 bit
>interface.

Many thanks.  I've just had a browse of JGH's site.  The separate
references to 8-bit and 16-bit IDE interfaces have gone, and there is
only mention of the one interface now, which appears to be the 8-bit.

>The simplest example would be ATA_IDENTIFY which reads the manufacturer id
>strings and drive capacity, this makes a formatter rather easier to automate
>rather than having to get the user to enter C/S/H geometry.

Wouldn't that mean it's necessary for the user to enter geometry every
time, since there's no mention of the 16 bit interface on JGH's site any
more?  However, JGH's instructions for the 8 bit interface indicate that
HDInit is able to obtain geometry from the drive:

"HDInit:
To initialise a blank hard drive run $.Utils.HDInit. Select the drive
with option 'D', then select format with option 'F'. HDInit will examine
the drive to find how big it is. It will display the size found and ask
for confirmation before blanking it out. Enter YES to confirm"

I'm puzzled.  How does HDInit get the drive geometry from an 8-bit
interface?

BTW, A poster on uk.adverts.computer was selling a Connor CFS210A drive
(120MB) a couple weeks ago.  I remember this as one of the early drives
that could be jumpered to IDE or ATAPI (8 bit vs 16 bit?)  I remember
these from my early PC days - there were 8-bit cards available for the
PC/XT models which had only 8-bit ISA slots.

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