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Compaq Portable 486 HDD

twconstantine

Member
Joined
May 3, 2024
Messages
34
Not sure what my options are for a Hard Drive replacement for my machine. The HDD is missing out of mine and it has a strange power cord. I want to go with a CF card or SD card, but not sure how to power it.

Thoughts? IMG_6866.jpegIMG_6941.jpegIMG_6940.jpeg
 
I have a HDD with that connector and a pinout. But I'm not near it right now, will check tomorrow and return here.
 
It is IDE. You can even see the keying pin. I had a CF card running in a 486C at one point with an adapter and a cable to bring +5v and ground over from the 3-pin flex cable
 
It is IDE. You can even see the keying pin. I had a CF card running in a 486C at one point with an adapter and a cable to bring +5v and ground over from the 3-pin flex cable
Thanks. The IDE isn’t the part I’m trying to figure out. It’s the power. I hear it’s 12v, 5v and ground so I’ll have to figure out how to use that once I get my PSU recapped.
 
12V? Why did they do that? I've never heard of a 44-pin ATA drive that took 12V.
Yeah, I don’t know. Thats what someone mentioned before. I’d be interested to understand that as well. I’ll probe it out when I have the PSU working.
 
It seems something like this had been asked about before...

That looks to be a standard 40-pin IDE interface so you could use a CF-IDE adapter and just need to supply +5v and GND as they don't require +12v. I've seen that 3-pin Molex power connector somewhere before but don't know what they called it. It's pretty much the standard 4-pin Molex connector with one less GND pin.
 
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