Apple ProFile 5MB HDD repair

[tony359]

Hi all,
I've been working on a dead Apple Profile, HDD for the //, /// and Lisa. Turned out the PSU was dead so I repaired it and made my usual video!

I don't have the card for my Apple // so I cannot test the drive but I'll return it soon to a friend who has a Lisa. The HDD seems to initialise happily, my friend told me it was struggling when tested on a different system but I don't see that.
Also, I am curious about the procedure to low level format it which requires a custom CPU? That's so cool! Is there any info online about that?

Feedback and comments always welcome!

Cheers!
Tony

 

[stepleton]

The original formatting documentation is here: http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/apple/disk/profile/5_Meg_Profile_HDA_Formatter_Feb83.pdf

These days a Lisa user would use a program like BLU to format the hard drive after installing a suitable Z8 MCU with the appropriate ROM fitted. (The ROM image is also on bitsavers.) But AFAIK the formatting procedure is fairly simple from the computer's point of view: I think it basically sends a command to the ProFile that says "hey disk: format yourself".

The Lisa community has a handful of the Z8 MCUs floating around for formatting duties. They come from a stock that I bought on eBay about a decade ago. If your friend needs to format a ProFile, they can enquire in the forums at at lisalist2.com or they can also drop me a line.

 

[tony359]

That's great, I'll send him a link to this conversation! Thanks for the document, it feels so cool that to format a drive you need to swap some hardware!