On Jun 3,  3:39pm, Miles Nordin wrote:
} On Thu, 3 Jun 1999, Herb Peyerl wrote:
} 
} > All of those drives handled identification properly and reported
} > correct geometry and size information.
} 
} The Western Digital ESDI controller in my 15-year-old Dell System 310 had
} a BIOS setup tool--one typed 'g c800:5' or some sort of arcade game
} nonsense in DEBUG.COM and this CLI popped up.  Among other things, one
} could set fictitious geometries for the drive.  It was sort of like making
} a role-playing character:  you kept hitting <SPACE> and it would make up
} random geometries for you, followed by a question mark.
} 
} 
} Choose a number of cylinders heads sectors emulation from the menu below.
} 569 cyl ,  37 sect ,   5 hd ,  ?
} 
} I'm not sure if these lies were told by the controller or the disk, but I
} do remember reading some of Dell's (at that time) copious documentation
} and thinking ``whaaat?  they did it _that_ way?'' so i'm leaning towards
} that the lies were told by the _disk_.

     It was the BIOS.  The disk didn't have any smarts.

}-- End of excerpt from Miles Nordin