Hard Disk Adjustment Utilities
Copyright (C) 1987 Richard. B. Johnson
All rights reserved.
DOCUMENTATION

WARNING NOTICE
The use of some of these utilies can result in the un-
recoverable loss of all data on your hard disk drives! The
"EXPAND" function attempts to FORMAT as many tracks as pos-
sible above those normally in use. Some disk drives will
seek to track zero if an attempt is made to read, write, or
format above some undefined track. This will cause track
zero to be formatted with the incorrect track and sector
information making access impossible without a complete re-
format. In this case, it will be impossible to recover any
data from the drive. In any case, the maximum usable track
is saved in the parameter table so that a new ROM can be
burned. Do NOT use the EXPAND utility or the FORMAT utility
on any hard disk that has good data or programs on it unless
the data on the drive has been completely backed up to disk
or tape. NOTICE: Some tape backup systems do not allow you
to restore a disk IMAGE if the size of the disk has been
changed! This means that you must do a file-by-file backup
in order to recover the data if you increase the amount of
data space by adding new tracks to the drive.

NOTE:

IBM is a registered trademark of International Business
Machines, Inc. IBM/XT/PC/AT are registered trademarks of
IBM. MS-DOS is a registered trademark of Microsoft
Corporation.

These utilities are very powerful. Therefore they require
the utmost of caution with use. If you are unfamiliar with
hard disk installation and the function of the hard disk
parameters in the BIOS tables, do not attempt to use the
program ADJUST.COM. Rename it to ADJUST.SAV so it can't
accidentally be run by an experienced person. None of the
other utilities included in this package can cause any harm
to your system or data.

Introduction.

The hard disk adjustment tool allows the user to modify the
drive parameters contained within the hard disk BIOS ROM
provided by various hard disk controller manufacturers. The
system can be tested with the new parameters in place and an
output file written that contains the modified code neces-
sary to program a new BIOS ROM for the controller.

The disk parameters are stored within the ROM in four tables
corresponding to four disk drive "types". These disk drive
types are indexed by the shorting pins and jumpers on the
hard disk controller card. In many cases the types available


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in these four tables do not cover all the possibilities for
optimum use of hard disk drives that may be available. For
instance, a 306 cylinder drive may, in fact, have over 306
usable cylinders. A common 612 cylinder drive has 650 usable
cylinders which means that the data storage space of the
drive can be increased by over 6 percent just by modifying
the BIOS ROM to "tell" DOS about all the extra cylinders
available. Even if there are no more usable cylinders above
the maximum listed in the tables, setting the table values
to one cylinder higher than the maximum usable, will free up
the spare cylinder that is thrown away by DOS. DOS throws
away the last cylinder because in version one DOS expected
the last cylinder to be used for a "bad sector table". DOS
versions after 2.0 write any bad sector information to the
FAT and therefore never use this cylinder at all. If you
have a drive with six heads, freeing up the last cylinder
will provide 52,224 bytes more of disk space!

The adjustment tool allows the modification of any of the
disk drive parameters, the system can then be run with the
new parameters in place so the user can optimize things like
the step rate and error-correcting bits in addition to the
number of cylinders. When the optimum parameters are found,
the user can write the BIOS with the new embedded parameters
to a file. The contents of this file can be "burned" into a
ROM to make the changes permanent.

The following procedures are supported:

o Review the four sets of operating parameters for the
four drive types supported by the hard disk BIOS.

o Change any/all of the disk parameters for any of the
drive types.

o Try out the drive with the new BIOS parameters. Any
DOS functions and any utilities may be run with the new BIOS
parameters in place.

o Write the contents of the BIOS ROM and the new
parameters to a file so that a new BIOS ROM can be
programmed.

o Checksum the new BIOS ROM file so it will be
recognized by the operating system upon boot up.

o Format (initialize) a drive using parameters
selected by the user.

o Attempt to format more cylinders than normally
provided. Expand the size of the drive to the maximum
possible. This will occur automatically with minimum
operator intervention.



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o Completely check out the drive with the new
parameters.

o Set the heads of all drives to the innermost track
for protection during handling or shipping.

o Write protect all hard disks in the system and,
optionally, write enable them.

It is assumed that the user of these utilities knows quite a
lot about hard disk drives and that he is either installing
a new one in a customer's computer or he is trying to im-
prove his own system. The utilities presented here are very
POWERFUL, but also very DANGEROUS. NEVER run ADJUST.COM if
you do not intend to erase all the data on ALL hard disks on
your system! One simple mistake can cause ALL the data and
programs on drive C to be destroyed when you were intending
to FORMAT a new drive D! It is advised that you make a copy
of your distribution disk onto a bootable floppy disk and
run the program from the floppy disk with any "good" hard
disks disconnected. Do not attempt to boot from a hard disk
and then disconnect it. You have one chance in ten of des-
troying track zero when you disconnect the drive!

The following utilities are provided:

ADJUST COM 4865 3-22-87 12:25a
This program is the "main menu" which creates an environment
in which the user can change the disk parameters at will. As
the parameters are modified, the user can test the various
drive functions. When the best parameters are selected the
contents of the Hard disk BIOS ROM are written to a file
with the new disk parameters contained in that file. The
user can then program a PROM with the file contents and in-
stall it in his disk controller in place of the default ROM.
The size of the ROM file is automatically determined by the
program. You may find that the file is somewhat smaller than
the size of the ROM in the hard disk controller. This is
perfectly correct. Most controllers use an 8k PROM but have
1024, 2048, 4096 or 8192 bytes of code in them. All Western
Digital, Xebec, and Omti controllers (to date) have BIOS
ROMs that are compatible with this program. As a matter of
fact, if the controller has a removable PROM, this program
can correctly copy and modify it. This is because the char-
acteristics of the ROM are required to be available through
interrupts and calls so that the ROM will be compatible with
IBM protocols.

The commands supported within the ADJUST shell are:

o Change: This command allows you to modify any of the
parameters listed in the four tables corresponding to the
four drive types. The default parameters are not modified.



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o Checksum: This command invokes the program
CHECKSUM.COM which modifies the file HDISK.ROM so it check-
sums in the proper manner to be recognized by the IBM BIOS
during the power-on-self-test (POST) routines.

o Exit: This command ends the program and returns to
DOS

o Expand: This command attempts to increase the number
of usable cylinders on a drive by formatting cylinders num-
bered greater than those listed in the default tables. The
tables are modified as each good new cylinder is added.
After the formatting operation, the cylinder must be read
fifty times without error for it to be considered good. The
previous cylinder is also checked to make certain that the
new cylinder had not just been written over the previous
one.

o Format: This command formats the entire drive using
the new parameters. This is important to do since the expand
routines do not bother with selecting an optimum interleave
factor. The interleave factor can be changed to whatever the
user desires to optimize the data transfer time of the
drive.

o New: This command restores all the drive parameters
to the default conditions at bootup.

o Ship: This command executes SHIP.COM which puts the
heads of all the drives at the innermost cylinder for a safe
shutdown.

o Speed: This command executes HDSPEED.COM which
checks the track-to-track access times of the drives. Many
different combinations are provided including reading actual
data from randomly selected tracks.

o Test: This command executes HDTEST.COM which
thoroughly tests the selected drive. Every sector on every
track are read and any errors are reported.

o Try: This command executes COMMAND.COM which lets
the user operate in the DOS environment with the new drive
parameters. In this manner, it is possible to "try out" the
new drive with other utilities.

o Write: This command writes the contents of the disk
controller BIOS ROM to a file (HDISK.ROM) with the new drive
parameters installed. This allows the user to "burn" a new
ROM to be installed in the controller with the new para-
meters being permanent.

The programs supplied in this package:



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AUTOTEST COM 798 5-1-87 10:03p
This program can be loaded into memory during bootup by
placing the command: AUTOTEST in your AUTOEXEC.BAT file. It
uses very little of the computer's memory since it has been
designed to use the absolute minimum amount of code. This
program causes the hard disk drives to make random seeks
during periods of hard disk in-activity. Should the seek
fail, an error message is printed at the upper left-hand
corner of the screen. Any programs in operation at the time
continue without interruption. The main purpose of this pro-
gram is not to report errors. It is to make it unlikely that
the disk heads remain over the directory tracks should the
computer power fail or a crash occur! In this manner, the
heads are moved to different places on the drives at about
ten-second intervals. Normally, any disk crash is most like-
ly to destroy the directory and FAT tracks, making it impos-
sible to recover ANY data (or programs) from the drives
since DOS leaves the heads over these tracks after every
file access. With this utility, the heads could be anywhere
should the disk crash. The chances of the directory tracks
being destroyed by such a crash is reduced from almost a
sure thing to 1 in 360 for a 360 cylinder drive. There's
even a lesser chance of damage with a larger drive. In the
event of a crash, only a file or two will be unusable rather
than everything. This utility starts to make random seeks
only after the drive has been idle for about 30 or more
seconds. This is so that normal disk activity is not slowed
down at all.

Note:
If you are doing intensive work close to your computer, you
might find the noise from the drives making random seeks an-
noying at first. After a few hours you probably won't find
it bothersome and after a few days, you will probably not
even notice the noise anymore.


CHECKSUM COM 640 1-26-87 10:03p
This program is called by ADJUST.COM to modify the contents
of the BIOS ROM file (HDISK.ROM) so that it checksums cor-
rectly. This program can also be run interactively by typ-
ing:
CHECKSUM [Return]
In this case, any file can be modified. The LAST byte in the
file is changed so that the sum of all the bytes in the file
(modulo 255) results in zero. This is required so that the
power-on-self-test (POST) routines in the computer will find
the ROM and connect it into the system before boot-up.
[WARNING! This program changes the last byte in the file. If
you "CHECKSUM" a program you will probably destroy it!]

DITHER COM 252 3-09-87 12:18a
This program will cause a hard disk to make random seeks to
all tracks until aborted by the operator. This will exercise


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the drive and help remove any dust particles that may have
gotten on the drive platters during shipping. It is recom-
mended that this routine be run overnight on old surplus
drives before a final low level format is done. Most all
hard disk drives contain an internal air filter through
which the internal air is re-circulated over and over again.
The air within the drive will thus get cleaner and cleaner.
If any particles on the platters are dislodged, they will
get trapped in the air filter and do no harm. If they are
allowed to remain on the platters, the result may be quite a
few bad sectors.
[The drive is NEVER written to so the program is safe to use
with a drive that contains good data.]

You run it by typing:

DITHER 0 [Return] {For drive C}
DITHER 1 [Return] {For drive D}

HDSPEED COM 941 3-20-87 11:36a
This program checks the track-to-track access times of the
drive. It produces a complete listing of various track
access times. Tested are:
Track-to-track seeks on the outer cylinders.
Track-to-track seeks on the middle cylinders.
Track-to-track seeks on the inner cylinders.
Random seeks over the entire data area.
Track-to-track reads on the outer cylinders.
Track-to-track reads on the middle cylinders.
Track-to-track reads on the inner cylinders.
Random reads over the entire data area.
[The drive is NEVER written to so the program is safe to use
with a drive that contains good data.]

HDTEST COM 2296 3-19-87 8:55p
This program completely checks the selected hard disk drive.
It starts by making overlapping seeks between the highest
and lowest tracks. After the seeks are complete it reads
every head/sector/track on the drive (backwards, which is
the hardest way). Any errors are reported on the screen. If
you run this program interactively, you can type anything in
the command line after the program name and then ONLY the
errors will apear on the screen. If you toggle control P
(The printer toggle), the errors will be listed on the prin-
ter. Along with the errors is the time and date at which
they occurred. This is helpful if you are running the pro-
gram from a batch file and want to test the drive over
night. The track number are reported in HEX in order to
speed up the testing as much as possible. Conversion of
binary to decimal takes about twenty times longer than
conversion to hexidecimal. Since every track, head, and
sector are reported, this added overhead would slow the
testing excessively.
[The drive is NEVER written to so the program is safe to use


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with a drive that contains good data.]

SHIP COM 351 3-22-87 12:17a
This program sets the heads on all drives to their innermost
tracks. Use of this program before the computer is shut down
or before the drives are removed is recommended to prevent
the heads for landing (actually crashing) on the directory
tracks which is where the heads will most likely by when the
computer is being shut down.
[The drive is NEVER written to so the program is safe to use
with a drive that contains good data.]

SPACE COM 541 1-26-87 10:05p
This program tells the user the amount of data space
available on any disk. You use it like this:

C>space d:

Drive D: has 33,435,648 bytes with 1,327,104 free and
32,108,544 used.

Unlike CHKDSK which takes a lot of time because it checks
the FAT against every directory entry, this program ONLY
gets information about the space available so it works much
faster. You probably have noticed that the " Bytes free"
information after a "DIR" under MS-DOS is not very accurate.
[The drive is NEVER written to so the program is safe to use
with a drive that contains good data.]

TRACE COM 1202 3-26-87 10:10p
This program allows a programmer to determine the exact
nature of every call being made to the hard disk BIOS
routines. Displayed on the screen is information about the
sectors being written or read, the amount of sectors to be
transferred, the DMA address, the heads being used as well
as the track, and whether or not the call was successful.
This program is very useful for programmers who are creating
device drivers. It allows them to check that their block-
ing/deblocking routines are working correctly and if the
calls being handled by the BIOS are efficient. It's much
more efficient to read 17 sectors starting at sector one
than it is to read each sector one at a time. Any errors
returned are translated to text. You must re-boot to "get
out" of the trace routine.
[The drive is NEVER written to so the program is safe to use
with a drive that contains good data.]

WPROT COM 314 3-22-87 11:34p
This program WRITE protects the hard disk drives in your
machine. The program functions as a toggle so the first time
it is run you will see a sign-on message and a notice that
the drives are write PROTECTED. The next time you run this
program it will write ENABLE the drives. The next time it
will write PROTECT then again, etc. The program can be run


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forever without using any additional memory.
[The drive is NEVER written to so the program is safe to use
with a drive that contains good data.]

Running the ADJUSTMENT tool environment:

The following is a complete interactive session using
ADJUST.COM:

Hard Disk Adjustment Tool Version 3.0
Copyright (C) 1987 Richard B. Johnson

Number of drives present. 2
Hard disk drive type..... 1 2 3 4
1: Number of tracks...... 306 [0132] 480 [01E0] 612 [0264] 306 [0132]
2: Number of heads....... 6 [0006] 4 [0004] 2 [0002] 4 [0004]
3: Cyl. reduced current.. 306 [0132] 480 [01E0] 612 [0264] 306 [0132]
4: Cyl. write precomp.... 128 [0080] 128 [0080] 128 [0080] 128 [0080]
5: Bits to error correct. 11 [000B] 11 [000B] 11 [000B] 11 [000B]
6: Control option byte... 0 [0000] 5 [0005] 5 [0005] 5 [0005]
7: Time-out for R/W...... 13 [000D] 14 [000E] 16 [0010] 13 [000D]
8: Time-out for format... 224 [00E0] 224 [00E0] 208 [00D0] 208 [00D0]
9: Time-out for diag..... 37 [0025] 37 [0025] 37 [0025] 37 [0025]
- Current drive parameters -
Drive 0 Heads = 6 Cylinders = 305 Sectors = 17 Type = 1
Drive 1 Heads = 4 Cylinders = 305 Sectors = 17 Type = 4

Change, Checksum, Exit, Expand, Format, New, Speed, Test, Try, Write

ADJUST> _

This is the sign-on message showing all of the drive
parameters possible to use with the present parameters
stored in the hard disk BIOS ROM. This configuration is
using the parameters in Table 4 (the right hand column).
This fact is shown under the "Current drive parameters"
listing which defines the current drives as being "Type" 1
and 4. Notice that only 305 of the possible 306 cylinders
are actually available for use.

Now let's test the drive:

ADJUST> test
TEST>
Copyright(C) 1986 Richard B. Johnson. All rights reserved.
Saturday March 21, 1987 Time 17:51:03.43 (05:51:03 PM)

The hard disk BIOS reports the following configuration:
Number of drives supported: 02

Drive 00 configuration: < The first drive, drive C: >
306 cylinders
06 heads
17 sectors per track
15384 Kb total space


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Drive 01 configuration: < The drive we are working on. >
306 cylinders
04 heads
17 sectors per track
10404 Kb total space

Is this correct? (Y/N) Y < Our answer >
Which drive to test (0-9) 1 < Answer "1" >
- testing -
Seeking 305 ^C < We abort with ^C since we have
already tested this drive. >

ADJUST> expand < Back to the main menu, type EXPAND>
EXPAND> Do you really want to do this? Y/N Y
EXPAND> Attempting to write cyl. 306 Verify OK
EXPAND> Attempting to write cyl. 307 Verify OK
EXPAND> Attempting to write cyl. 308 Verify OK
EXPAND> Attempting to write cyl. 309 Verify OK
EXPAND> Attempting to write cyl. 310 Verify OK
EXPAND> Attempting to write cyl. 311 Verify OK
EXPAND> Attempting to write cyl. 312 Verify OK
EXPAND> Attempting to write cyl. 313 Verify OK
EXPAND> Attempting to write cyl. 314 Verify OK
EXPAND> Attempting to write cyl. 315 Verify OK
EXPAND> Attempting to write cyl. 316 Verify OK
EXPAND> Attempting to write cyl. 317 Verify OK
EXPAND> Attempting to write cyl. 318 Verify OK
EXPAND> Attempting to write cyl. 319 Verify OK
"
"
EXPAND> Attempting to write cyl. 356 Verify OK
EXPAND> Attempting to write cyl. 357 < Does not verify!>
FORMAT> Want to reformat the entire drive? Y/N Y < Answer yes >
FORMAT> Interleave factor? (1 - 10) 5 < Enter the IBM default >
FORMAT> Formatting drive 1

We return to the main menu when FORMAT is through.

Hard Disk Adjustment Tool Version 3.0
Copyright (C) 1987 Richard B. Johnson

Number of drives present. 2
Hard disk drive type..... 1 2 3 4
1: Number of tracks...... 306 [0132] 480 [01E0] 612 [0264] 356 [0132]
2: Number of heads....... 6 [0006] 4 [0004] 2 [0002] 4 [0004]
3: Cyl. reduced current.. 306 [0132] 480 [01E0] X12 [0264] 306 [0132]
4: Cyl. write precomp.... 128 [0080] 128 [0080] 128 [0080] 128 [0080]
5: Bits to error correct. 11 [000B] 11 [000B] 11 [000B] 11 [000B]
6: Control option byte... 0 [0000] 5 [0005] 5 [0005] 5 [0005]
7: Time-out for R/W...... 13 [000D] 14 [000E] 16 [0010] 13 [000D]
8: Time-out for format... 224 [00E0] 224 [00E0] 208 [00D0] 208 [00D0]
9: Time-out for diag..... 37 [0025] 37 [0025] 37 [0025] 37 [0025]
- Current drive parameters -


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Drive 0 Heads = 6 Cylinders = 305 Sectors = 17 Type = 1
Drive 1 Heads = 4 Cylinders = 305 Sectors = 17 Type = 4

Change, Checksum, Exit, Expand, Format, New, Speed, Test, Try, Write
ADJUST> _


Notice that the number of usable tracks has
automatically been set under drive type 4 to 356. You will
probably want to use CHANGE to set the cylinders for reduced
write current and write pre-compensation to the same number
also, at least until you find out if you need any precom-
pensation or reduced write current. Most drives do not use
reduced write current so that parameter is set to be the
same as the highest track number. Other drives usually use
write pre-compensation starting at the middle tracks (one
half of the usable tracks). Miniscribe (R) uses write pre-
compensation for the entire drive with most of their drives.
In this case you set that track to zero.

ADJUST> write < We'll now write a new ROM >
WRITE> Writing HDISK.ROM

ADJUST> checksum < We must now checksum the file >
CHECKSUM> HDISK.ROM
The file has been modified.
[Return] < Hit return to get back to the main
menu.>

Now we are going to check the access time of the
drive to determine if the controller option byte should be
modified.

ADJUST> speed
SPEED>

Hard disk access time diagnostic utility. Version 3.0
Copyright (C) 1987 Richard B. Johnson

Which drive? (0 - 1) 1
Code execution time of .32ms is applied to access times.
Random seeks 89.08ms
-- Track to track --
Outside cylinders 16.09ms
Center cylinders 15.98ms
Inside cylinders 15.98ms
Random reads 100.72ms
-- Track to track --
Outside cylinders 33.26ms
Center cylinders 33.15ms
Inside cylinders 33.21ms

As you can see, the access times for this inexpen-
sive drive are quite good. In this case, we'll not experi-


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ment with the option byte. When we return to the main menu,
we type exit to return to DOS

ADJUST> exit

C>dir < If we check the directory, we find a new file!>


Volume in drive C is MAIN!!!!
Directory of C:\WORK

. 1-26-87 10:07p
.. 1-26-87 10:07p
HDSPEED COM 941 3-20-87 11:36a
HDISK ROM 8192 3-21-87 5:39p < This should be "burned"
ADJUST COM 4679 3-20-87 10:19a into a new
HDTEST COM 2296 3-19-87 8:55p ROM to replace the one on
DITHER COM 252 3-09-87 12:18a the controller board.>
MANUAL 9076 3-20-87 3:52p
6 File(s) 7831552 bytes free

In this case, we have taken a drive that was
supposed to be a 10 megabyte drive and have expanded it to
over 12 megabytes!

Interleave:
Sector interleave is the mechanism used to improve the
throughput of most disk drives. Ideally, one would like to
be able to read or write a whole track in one revolution of
the disk. In the real world applications of disk drives,
there is seldom any requirement to read the entire contents
of a track at one time. Usually, the operating system re-
quests a read or write to one or more logical records. The
system effectively says "I want to read 5 records starting
at the 300th record". The disk drive BIOS converts these
record requests to physical tracks, sectors, and heads. It's
very likely that the first record requested may be on the
last physical sector on a track, the next record may be the
first sector on the other side of the disk platter (another
head), but at the very same track (the same cylinder).
Furthermore, the operating system may process the data from
these sectors before it asks for any more. The data proces-
sing takes a fair amount of time. If we were to use one-to-
one sector interleave where the sectors are numbered sequen-
tially one right after another, it is very likely that the
next sector requested would have already passed the read
head by the time the operating system "asked" for it. This
would mean that the disk platters would have to make a new
revolution to read the next physical sector. If you want to
read five sectors, you'd have to wait for the disk to go
around five times. This is not very efficient. If we could
arrange for the next physical sector to be available just at
the time the operating system asked for it, one could not
have to wait very long to read it. This is what sector


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interleaving does. The IBM default for sector interleaving
skips five physical sectors (5:1 interleave) for each
incremental sector on the disk. It is very possible that
this may not be the optimum interleave for your drive, BIOS,
and software.

The way to determine the optimum sector interleave takes a
bit of time, but can really pay for itself in time saved
later on. What you do is obtain a copy of a timing program
like Peter Norton's "Stopwatch" TM.COM . This program will
record the amount of time necessary copy a group of files
between directories on your hard disk. First you create a
batch file that's something like this:

TM /START/N
COPY *.* \JUNK
TM /STOP/N

Save this BATCH file on a floppy. Then initialize the hard
disk using a 1:1 interleave factor. You must then FDISK it
and FORMAT it. The format operation takes a long time, but
it will be worth it. After the drive is formatted, copy the
files you saved on drive A: to the fixed disk. Copy enough
files to that it takes at least one minute to copy them all.
Then make \JUNK directory on the hard disk and copy the
files to that directory using your BATCH procedure.

The procedure looks like this:

C>XXX < This is the name of my BATCH file>
C>TM /START/N < This is Norton's Stop watch >
C>COPY *.* \JUNK
ADJUST.COM
ADJUST.ASM
CHECKSUM.COM
DITHER.COM
HDBIOS.ROM
HDISK.ROM
HDSPEED.COM
HDSPEED.ASM
HDTEST.COM
HDTEST.ASM
MANUAL
SHIP.COM
SHIP.ASM
WPROT.ASM
WPROT.COM
INTER
XXX.BAT
17 File(s) copied

C>TM STOP/N
4:18 seconds < This is the time.>
In this case the file transfer took four minutes and


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Hard disk adjustment tools Page 13

eighteen seconds.

Now we'll initialize the drive using an interleave of 2:1.
We then FDISK it and FORMAT it. Using the same procedure as
before, we use our batch procedure to time the copying of
files.

C>XXX < This is the name of my BATCH file>
C>TM /START/N < This is Norton's Stop watch>
C>COPY *.* \JUNK
ADJUST.COM
ADJUST.ASM
CHECKSUM.COM
DITHER.COM
HDBIOS.ROM
HDISK.ROM
HDSPEED.COM
HDSPEED.ASM
HDTEST.COM
HDTEST.ASM
MANUAL
SHIP.COM
SHIP.ASM
WPROT.ASM
WPROT.COM
INTER
XXX.BAT
17 File(s) copied

C>TM STOP/N
3:58 seconds < This is the time.>
In this case the file transfer took three minutes and fifty-
eight seconds which is still not very much better. Undaunt-
ed, we continue, this time setting the interleave factor to
3:1. After FDISK and FORMAT, the results are like this:

C>XXX < This is the name of my BATCH file>
C>TM /START/N < This is Norton's Stop watch>
C>COPY *.* \JUNK
ADJUST.COM
ADJUST.ASM
CHECKSUM.COM
DITHER.COM
HDBIOS.ROM
HDISK.ROM
HDSPEED.COM
HDSPEED.ASM
HDTEST.COM
HDTEST.ASM
MANUAL
SHIP.COM
SHIP.ASM
WPROT.ASM
WPROT.COM


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Hard disk adjustment tools Page 14

INTER
XXX.BAT
17 File(s) copied

C>TM STOP/N
3:44 seconds < This is the time.>
In this case the file transfer took three minutes and
fourty-four seconds which is still not very much better.
Undaunted, we continue, this time setting the interleave
factor to 4:1. After FDISK and FORMAT, the results are like
this:

C>XXX < This is the name of my BATCH file>
C>TM /START/N < This is Norton's Stop watch>
C>COPY *.* \JUNK
ADJUST.COM
ADJUST.ASM
CHECKSUM.COM
DITHER.COM
HDBIOS.ROM
HDISK.ROM
HDSPEED.COM
HDSPEED.ASM
HDTEST.COM
HDTEST.ASM
MANUAL
SHIP.COM
SHIP.ASM
WPROT.ASM
WPROT.COM
INTER
XXX.BAT
17 File(s) copied

C>TM STOP/N
34 seconds < This is the time>
This is NOT a typo!! It only took thirty-four seconds to
transfer all those files once the optimum interleave factor
was found! Do NOT increase the interleave factor beyond this
point, it will only increase the disk access time again.
Generally, if you start with too small an interleave factor,
you will find a point where the transfer rate will abruptly
increase. This is a lot better than starting with too great
an interleave factor and then finding that at some point it
abruptly got very poor. You would have to re-initialize the
drive again to the previously determined interleave factor.
- END -









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Hard disk adjustment tools Page 15


WARRANTY

THIS SOFTWARE IS LICENSED (NOT SOLD). IT IS LICENSED TO
SUBLICENSEES, INCLUDING END-USERS, WITHOUT EITHER EXPRESS OR
IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND ON AN "AS-IS" BASIS.

It is possible to completely destroy data and programs using
the Winchester Drive low-level FORMAT and EXPAND routines.
This data can never be recovered since it will be completely
overwritten.

If you discover any "bugs" or encounter any problems with
this software that you think might be caused by problems
within the programs supplied, please contact the designer.

Richard B. Johnson
2006 Broughton Drive
Beverly, Massachusetts
01915-1802

If you get a "Program file is corrupt!" notice when you
attempt to run any of these utilities it means that the
program contents has changed since the distribution copy was
made. This is usually caused by "hackers" changing things
like serial numbers and copyright notices. It is possible to
patch such a program and make it work, but it is not advised
since damage might occur to your data on your disk drives.
The purpose of the program verification routine is to make
certain that you have a correct copy of the programs. These
programs are not copy-protected. Unlike copy-protection
schemes, the program verification routines are designed to
protect you, not the vendor.























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