Microscience HH-1050 MFM 40mb HD

[nilo]

Hello all,

I have a Microscience HH-1050 MFM HD which I would like to get installed in my XT box. The problem is I don't know what controller to get that will be compatible. Here is a link to the specs on thsi drive: http://stason.org/TULARC/pc/hard-drives-hdd/microscience/HH-1050-44MB-5-25-HH-MFM-ST506.html

I currently have a fully working ST-225 drive in my XT clone with a WD controller (WDXT-GEN ASSY 61-000222-00). I tried hooking up the 40mb drive to this controller to no avail.

Any help is appreciated.

 

[patscc]

Controllers

Controllers

Have you looked at :
http://stason.org/TULARC/pc/hard-di...L-CORPORATION-Two-MFM-ST506-412-driv-227.html

This should tell you what version of your card you have.

For ideas on other cards, go here:
http://stason.org/TULARC/pc/hard-disk-floppy-controllers/8isa_1.html
Scroll down, and whenever you see a 8-bit card that supports MFM, click on the picture, and it will take you to the specs for that card, where you can see the drive configurations for that particular card. This way, you can pick a few out to keep an eye out for.
Hope this helps.
patscc

 

[modem7]

I tried hooking up the 40mb drive to this controller to no avail.

Welcome to these forums.

Your WDXT-GEN controller is shown at http://stason.org/TULARC/pc/hard-di...L-CORPORATION-Two-MFM-ST506-412-driv-227.html
It only supports one type of hard drive, dependent on the 'feature' (the ROM). Your feature (ROM) must be F300 or F320, which supports a drive that has 615 cylinders, 4 heads and a WPC of 307 (e.g. an ST-225).

You can get your HH-1050 (1024 sylinders, 5 heads, no WPC) working on the WDXT-GEN controller, but it would work at about 1/2 capacity (the same capacity as the ST-225), and there may be some subtle problems caused by the difference in WPC. Once connected, you would need to low-level format the drive, then partition it, then high-level format it.

I'm guessing though that you want the extra capacity provided by a move to the HH-1050. Correct?

 

[mikey99]

I have a MicroScience HH-1060 installed in my IBM AT.
Don't see many of these MicroScience drives around anymore.
This is the same basic drive as yours but its RLL format.
It's running on an AMS 1100 RLL 16 bit controller.

 

[Marrr]

Your WDXT-GEN controller is shown at http://stason.org/TULARC/pc/hard-di...L-CORPORATION-Two-MFM-ST506-412-driv-227.html
It only supports one type of hard drive, dependent on the 'feature' (the ROM). Your feature (ROM) must be F300 or F320, which supports a drive that has 615 cylinders, 4 heads and a WPC of 307 (e.g. an ST-225).

True, but some (all?) XT-GEN controllers have Dynamic Formatter.

So, I suggest the following:
- run debug
- type g=c800:5
- when it asks "Are you dynamically configuring the drive" answer Y
- enter your HDD parameters

...and full capacity should be available.

 

[nilo]

Latest update:

So I finally got around to digging out the Microscience HH-1050 hard drive (manufactured 05/1990). I bought a WDXT-GEN2 PLUS controller off ebay for $25 (supports up to 1024 cylinders and 16 heads) to be able to use this hard drive to its full capacity (44MB) with PC DOS 7. In summary, it worked like a charm. I connected this drive through this controller on a PC XT clone turbo (10MHz).

-Ran debug
-Picked interleave 3 (confirmed it's the fastest with Spinrite II)
-Answered "y" to dynamically configuring the drive
-Used the following HDD parameters: 1024 5 1025 1025 11 5.
- Ran fdisk and formatted to 42.5 MB successfully. Encountered 3 bad sectors but everything else checked out fine.

This will be a nice addition to my original ST-225 (manufactured in 1987), which is still working flawlessly and has no bad sectors. Not bad for 33 and 36 year old drives!
Thanks for all he help!

 

[archeocomp]

Nice. And it only took you 14 years