🚀 go-pugleaf

(The first time I posted this didn't seem to go through, sorry if you
have to see it twice).

I have a Seagate ST1239A drive (IDE, 210MB) that I'd like to use
together with a Miniscribe 70MB unit driven by an Adaptec RLL XT
(8-bit) controller in 386 machine (AMI BIOS). My understanding is that
although IDE controllers are picky about co-existing with other units,
they have no problem if the other controller bypasses the BIOS (like
SCSI and XT controllers).

However, my tries have been in vainn so far. I tried setting the IDE
controller to use the secondary address and the IDE drive to be either
slave drive or just in a normal IDE single drive mode, but no go.
Either I get a HDD controller error or the drive is not recognized.
Both drives work flawlessly if each was the only drive installed in
the system. I called the tech support of Hard Drives International
(the place I purchased thge IDE drive from), but the person I talked
to didn't give me a satifactory answer -- "if you try it and it
doesn't work, it probably won't work", said he without asking a single
question about my setup. I'm sure I'll fare much better from the
gentile experts of the net (a little bit of kissing up never hurts,
right? :-).

So there you have it: is it realistic to expect the two units to work
together? If yes, how does one go about achieving that? (an additional
complication is that I no longer have the manual of the Adaptec
controller, <sigh>).

Thanks a lot.