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i have an 8-bit hardcard.. what drives can go on it?

Mike Chambers

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Sep 2, 2006
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an 8-bit IDE hardcard with a 20 MB drive came in my new tandy 1000tx today, but it has problems. i got it to work, but there are a ton of bad areas on the drive and i have to work around them. i ended up having to make 4 partitions, small ones. the largest is about 7 MB, and i've lost about 3 MB total due to bad areas on the drive.

even like this i get the odd read or write error. i know these old cards can be finicky about what drives can go on them. it's an 1988 western digital card.

would this work on it?

http://cgi.ebay.com/Seagate-ST3283A...2297291QQcmdZViewItem?_trksid=p3286.m20.l1116

better suggestions? i don't need anything very big. even a 20 MB if it worked would be fine for my purposes.
 
there are a number of interfaces labeled "IDE" that are in reality something other then what the usage indicates. The Tandy's made ample use of "IDE" cards, where the drive got mounted on the card (or rather it's accompanying frame) itself. I have one of these somewhere, and the Seagate drive, IIRC, has a more or less "common" part number. It's not available presently, but I'll try to dig it out in say a week or so. It might just appear to be common because that drive was commonly used in the Tandys so equipped!
It just might be that the drive is your standard run of the mill MFM (not an actual IDE drive). But I am of the persuasion that these drives may not be standard MFM (but I'm at a loss to explain why), or at least some of these mount on type adapters call for a "special' drive. A number of years ago (about 15) I saw a hard drive on sale at a RS in Long Island. The manager said that it needed a Tandy adapter to work (but was otherwise labeled or designated "IDE"). I wound up not buying it.
The IBM PS/2 model 25's and 30's I guess had an "IDE" interface also. But you couldn't just plug an MFM (or IDE) drive into that interface from what I remember. I actually located the right cable to utilize a "stock" hard drive in my Model 25, and it's definitely not a 40 pin ide cable.
Earlyish copies of upgrade and repair tomes by Scott Mueller and others will probably prove helpful in sorting this all out. Perhaps someone on this list can help out. I remember one of them specifically spoke on the "IDE" adapter in the IBM Model 25s. Good luck.
 
there are actual 8-bit IDE cards though. One is made by Acculogic. There are others though. I never found out to what extent you can utilize an IDE hard drive. Obviously early ones will work. These cards will undoubtedly have limitations (there was discussion on classiccmp about problems likely to be encountered with ATA-3 type drives or what have you). But there are IDE interfaces for the Commie 64 and such, so it's not impossible that ANY ide drive could be utilized in an early pc. But those early cards may have limitations (maybe it comes down to only firmware and timing issues perhaps).
 
If it's 8-bit IDE, won't it be like an XT IDE hard drive? I remember that the pinouts are different, as the Amiga A590 hard drive add-on has a 40-pin 8-bit XT IDE interface as well as a 50-pin SCSI. I know this as I have just changed an ancient 20Mb Western Digital XT drive for a 4Gb SCSI-2 in the A590, with the required interface adapter to get to 50-pin from 68-pin.

The problems with using standard AT IDE hard drives are that the interface only passes 8-bit commands and the drive will be expecting 16-bit, so they won't work.

I'd put my money on an XT-IDE hard drive being what you need. Other than that, would it be easier to get an old SCSI controller? At least SCSI hard drives are easier (and cheaper) to get hold of these days.
 
The WD 93028 with no -A or -AD suffix is an XT IDE drive, some of them were marked 93028-X.

See here, with an article from 1990 and a link with a photo:

http://www.devili.iki.fi/library/issue/169.en.html

http://www.webs4u.co.nz/museum/recover.html

I bet yours looks like the one in the second link.....:mrgreen:

The WD 93028 was offered as a replacement drive by Commodore for the Amiga A590, therefore it has to be an XT-IDE drive, as AT-IDE drives don't work in the A590 and the controller in the A590 is only 8-bit. This would fit with the 8-bit controller logic that you say your card has.

I have just checked and my A590 also had a WD 93028 20Mb drive in it, which is the one I replaced.

I rest my case.....
 
The WD 93028 with no -A or -AD suffix is an XT IDE drive, some of them were marked 93028-X.

See here, with an article from 1990 and a link with a photo:

http://www.devili.iki.fi/library/issue/169.en.html

http://www.webs4u.co.nz/museum/recover.html

I bet yours looks like the one in the second link.....:mrgreen:

The WD 93028 was offered as a replacement drive by Commodore for the Amiga A590, therefore it has to be an XT-IDE drive, as AT-IDE drives don't work in the A590 and the controller in the A590 is only 8-bit. This would fit with the 8-bit controller logic that you say your card has.

I have just checked and my A590 also had a WD 93028 20Mb drive in it, which is the one I replaced.

I rest my case.....

that's exactly it! yeah, i tried both a 256 MB drive and a 540 MB drive, neither work. (although i think the 256 MB is just bad to begin with, but it was worth a shot)

i found a 90 MB drive that can switch between 8 and 16 bit mode on ebay for like $40, i might purchase it.

and MikeS: thanks for the tip, i will try him.:)
 
Before the advent of the AT-IDE, there would have been no need to mark them. The Seagate drives should have an -A/X suffix, or none at all, but I'm not sure about other companies.

--T
 
Before the advent of the AT-IDE, there would have been no need to mark them. The Seagate drives should have an -A/X suffix, or none at all, but I'm not sure about other companies.

--T


Spot on. The problem is, you have to be old enough to know this stuff, it's like being a Jedi sometimes, unless you know this stuff or know someone that does, you're pretty much screwed as the search engines aren't always your friend.
 
If the problem is in the HDA (as it usually is) and the HDA is the same for all versions of the WD93028 (quite probable) then if you can find a good 16-bit version you might be able to just replace the HDA; that's worked for me a few times, even (surprisingly) with different models/capacities.

m
 
that's exactly it! yeah, i tried both a 256 MB drive and a 540 MB drive, neither work. (although i think the 256 MB is just bad to begin with, but it was worth a shot)

i found a 90 MB drive that can switch between 8 and 16 bit mode on ebay for like $40, i might purchase it.

Compact Flash cards *must* support 8-bit mode as part of the spec. So try a CF card with an adapter.
 
Compact Flash cards *must* support 8-bit mode as part of the spec. So try a CF card with an adapter.

That depends on the optional "8-bit mode" feature on ATA drives being the same thing as the 8-bit interface on XTA drives. I always had the impression that they had different register sets.
 
You know, I could SWEAR I just saw in the last couple days, and 8-bit IDE listed on fleaBay, in the vintage section...I'll try to see if I bookmarked it.

UPDATE:

Here ya go, but it ain't hardcard-mountable: linkage - Miniscribe 8450XT on fleaBay

I *THINK* it's an 8-bit IDE. And, it's from a decent, reliable seller: loki_loot


T
 
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Compact Flash cards *must* support 8-bit mode as part of the spec. So try a CF card with an adapter.

thanks for the info trixter. i just ordered an adapter. i saw some horror stories on google about how some finicky cards don't work in 8-bit mode. i checked the particular adapter and kingston card (256 MB) i ordered and both claim to work perfectly with an 8-bit host bus.

this will be fun. :)
 
You know, I could SWEAR I just saw in the last couple days, and 8-bit IDE listed on fleaBay, in the vintage section...I'll try to see if I bookmarked it.

UPDATE:

Here ya go, but it ain't hardcard-mountable: linkage - Miniscribe 8450XT on fleaBay

I *THINK* it's an 8-bit IDE. And, it's from a decent, reliable seller: loki_loot


T

thanks for the link, but i went with the CF route because of the age of hard drives like that and there are no guarantees on it. plus they have huge seek times.
 
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