Help! How do I use a Maxtor drive with a 386clone

[Greggory Orsini contractor]

I've got a XT2190 (Maxtor 190 unformatted) hard disk I'm trying to use RLL with
a wd1006v-sr2.  Now, the drive was in use as an RLL on a DEC pc type so I    
thought it should work, but I get strange results: 

    If I format 15 heads x 1224 cylinders x 26 sectors I always seem to get  
stuck at head 13 (Aborted cmd).  First I thought it was a bad drive.  So I
exchanged it for a known good drive.  Same symtoms.  I used the formatter on
the wd1006 ROMs.  I downloaded the 'wdfmt' program the WD's bulliten board and
got the same result.  I tried formatting just 12 heads and it seemed OK.  But
on the verify pass, for every cylinder every other platter gives ID not found
errors.  (heads 2,3,6,7,9,10) 

Do I need some third party formatter?  Help!

Thanks, Greg Orsini

Greg Orsini
hplabs!hpkslx!greg
(415) 691-3743