Xebec/IBM Debug Address for Low-Level Format??

[Scott Stevens]

On Mon, 6 Jun 2005 04:00:28 GMT
"Bill Pileggi" <wpileggi at juno.com> wrote:

> 
> I want to perform a low-level format on my Seagate ST-225 MFM hard
> drive - it has the Xebec (IBM) 1210 controller card. I cannot for the
> life of me remember the address to use in Debug. I know how to use
> Debug; I've done 100's of LL formats - just not in the last dozen
> years or so. Does Anybody remember?? Please email off-list. Thank
> you.... My HDD is working, I just want to set it up right from
> scratch. (In case anybody's wondering, I do a LL format on IDE drives
> before using them, too.) Bill Pileggi
> 

For a Xebec board, there isn't a single BIOS address that you can just
jump to with the debug command.  You have to poke info into several
registers with debug, which 'kicks off' the controller card to do a
low-level format of the drive.  It silently picks up and the hard drive
light goes active, then eventually goes out.  With no feedback, but I
believe there's a register you can then read with debug to see that it
formatted properly.  It's a rather 'blind' formatting routine.  I don't
know if I have a list of the commands to give anymore.  I believe  you
can 'reverse engineer' it by reading the I/O register commands and
what-not in the technical reference for the card.  Which I remember
seeing published somewhere once.  Again I may have it, but it's waaaay
back in the archives.

Somebody needs to write an 'early PC/PC-clone hard drive FAQ' that
contains all this stuff.  OR is there one already?