WD1007WAH/AMI BIOS/HK 386 clone

[Chris Lewis]

Sorry for the crosspost, (I mean, after all perhaps this should go
in a PC group), but the UNIX/XENIXer's are more likely to know the
answer.  (Especially since the end result is eventually UNIX)

One of my colleagues has a generic Hong Kong 386 motherboard with an
AMI BIOS (dated 1989).  He had a WD1007WAH kicking around, so he
installed it with a 180Mb ESDI drive and a generic floppy-only
controller for floppies.  The disk has 1200 some-odd cylinders.

Setting the WD1007WAH to the 63 sector translation (because the
drive is > 1024 cylinders), and drive type 1, the WD1007WAH's
ROM low-level formatter seemed to format the drive perfectly.
Light flicker on drive and all.  But attempting to use FDISK returns
"seek error - can't access C: drive" or hangs the system.

With a borrowed DTC5180 (I think that's the right number), he
gets the same result.

With a different version of the same manufacturer's motherboard
(also AMI BIOS), he gets the same result with the WD1007WAH
Using the DT5180, only drive C is accessible via FDISK.

It (the WD1007WAH, and disk drive) works perfectly on SCI 286 and
386 motherboards (Phoenix BIOS).  (SCI motherboards usually have
built-in floppy and hard disk controllers - the hard disk controller
was disabled).

The vendor made a claim about EGA clashes with the WD1007WAH, but
a monochrome adapter made no difference.  All of the vendor's
motherboards appear to have AMI BIOS.  This is a personal system,
so my colleague is trying to stick with this vendor because they're
the cheapest around (or rather, he's already paid for it :-().

Does anyone know of any problems/solutions with AMI BIOS and WD1007WAH?
(or WD1007* generically)

Any other suggestions?

Thanks
-- 
Chris Lewis, Elegant Communications Inc, {uunet!attcan,utzoo}!lsuc!eci386!clewis
Ferret mailing list: eci386!ferret-list, psroff mailing list: eci386!psroff-list