🚀 go-pugleaf

Please forgive me if I am asking something FAQ, but I've never read this
group before, nor do I know if this is the correct group for such a question
but it seems to be the most appropriate.

I have a new hard drive... and I know nothing about hardware... following
the sparse instructions I was given, I discovered that the utility that
appears to be built-in to the drive (which I will go into in a moment)
will not low-level format the drive - I believe it is defective, and will
find that out tomorrow... but that is beside the point.

First of all, the instructions that came with the drive (which, if it may
help at all, is a Maxtor 380MB that needs an MFM controller [the basic
cause of this whole problem] and the old one I had is an IDE 40MB) said to
use the debug program in MS-DOS and to enter the line
G=C800:6
which did, when the drive was connected, successfully initiate the low
level formatting procedure.  Now came the nightmare (although the 40 meg
had been backed up just before we started in) -- I asked my father is the
(err, if the) 40 meg was disconnected and he said yes.  We then proceeded
to do a low level format, and it formatted some 4 heads and stopped.
Apparently the 40 meg was NOT disconnected, and something went horribly
wrong... the hard drive is reported as having no boot sector.  (The 40 meg
that is) ... we found later that the dip switches to disable the on-board
HD controller were set wrong... we had not disabled them... we had disabled
the floppy by mistake (when we didn't find the information in the manual
we called a local company and he told us if we had one bank of dip switches
that it would either be 3,4, or 7.  7 was the floppy, 8 was for the HD.)
Anyway - I have no way to re-low level format the 40 meg, and the 380 meg
has to be sent in for repairs.  Trying to initiate the same program that
made this mess in the first place, once the 380meg is disconnected, locks
up the system - which leads me to believe that either the program run is
either loaded into memory by the MFM controller card or that it is stored
on a ROM chip of the hard drive - either way, I have no way to low level
format the 40 meg, and I need a hard drive.

If someone can help me, I would greatly appreciate it.

I'm learning quite a bit about hardware, now if only I could get either
drive running I'd be fine.  (Oh - this is being written from my father's
portable... my only access, and at a pitiful 2400 baud... sigh ... I want
my 14.4kbaud modem back... and my soundblaster... and hell... my computer!)

Thanks
Jen
(Email me - I don't usually read this group.)