PE> I've just run a little program I wrote over my disks
PE> and have got some interesting results.  My 4 drives are
PE> Conner 420, Maxtor 540, Quantum 2.4 gig, Quantum 2.4 gig.

PE> Amibios says that they are:

PE> 826 16 63
PE> 1050 16 63
PE> 4969 16 63
PE> 4969 16 63

Presumably you meant that thats what the bios says in
the autoidentify, in the normal mode, without LBA enabled.

PE> My program says that they are:

PE> 825 16 64
PE> 524 32 64
PE> 873 16 64
PE> 873 16 64

The difference of one in the cylinder count with the first drive
is complicated. There is a reserved maintenance cylinder as far
as DOS is concerned. So you do usually find that the manufacturers
label data on the drive itself is one more than the bios finds with
an autoidentify. Tho some of the manufacturers have started to make
those numbers match because of the confusion that can cause.

The 63/64 with the sectors is just because DOS numbers those from 0, not 1.
Just to fuck things up completely, the head number from 1, not 0. Bizarre.

The Sirrocco data is certainly rather odd. OTOH presumably FDISK does
see the full capacity of the drive, so it cant actually be seeing those
numbers you list. Come to think of it, I dunno what the OS/2 FDISK does
specifically about that stuff, whether it notices that LBA is enabled and
just uses the maximum block number and ignores that CHS data completely.

And you dont say just how you ran that program, it doesnt prove too
much if you ran it inside OS/2, as far as what the bios itself reports.
You really need to run it with plain booted DOS atleast, say from a floppy.

Just what INT 13 reports is complicated by a wide variety of issues.

PE> Note that 4969 % 1024 = 873.

God knows what you mean here.

PE> I therefor conclude that there is a bug in Amibios
PE> that is causing LBA to not remap the drive correctly.

Thats a pretty rash conclusion at this stage.

PE> Note that LBA on the 540 meg drive is
PE> working fine, as the figures above show.

Well, there certainly is some problem with the Siroccos, but just
where that problem lies is another matter entirely at this stage.

PE> BTW, can you tell me whether there are 63 or 64 sectors
PE> per track. I added 1 to get the # heads right, but not
PE> sure if I should do the same with sectors.

See above.
@EOT:

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