Mount MFM/RLL on more current machine

[ScutBoy]

I've got a Seagate ST-238 drive on an WD-1002-27x controller that I'd like to mount on a more modern machine to see if I can extract any data. The donor machine/power supply is not functional.

The machine I have with ISA slots is a Pentium II that is currently booting off of an IDE DOM (C:\) (it's a tweener that I use for disk imaging) Also has floppies driven off of an Adaptec SCSI controller (but no SCSI drives hooked up) and an IDE CDROM (D:\). This is booting DOS

I'd like to put the WD controller in the machine, and get the Seagate mounted up.

Looking at the jumper config for the WD, I'm not sure exactly what I should change... there's a jumper for "dual controller setting, secondary controller" and also a BIOS enable/disable jumper. Not sure at this point if I'm going to need to deal with IRQ settings either on the WD card or the PC BIOS, or if any other driver(s) need to be loaded to see this second HD controller.

It's been a long time since I've dealt with this stuff, so any ideas are appreciated. Last resort would be to find an XT class machine and put this in as the only HD and controller, I guess.


WD controller settings:
https://stason.org/TULARC/pc/hard-d...L-CORPORATION-Two-RLL-ST506-412-driv-219.html

 

[Trixter]

Whatever system you decide to put it in, you'll need to keep the drive + controller together, since the drive was formatted via that controller.

 

[SomeGuy]

XT style controllers technically can function in AT-class machines, but once you get past 486 era machines, you are very likely to run in to things that will prevent the controller from working.

In other words, I'd be quite surprised if you could get the Pentium II to work, but you would not necessarily need an XT class machine just to read the contents, as a 286, 386, or early 486 should also do the trick.

 

[evris80]

XT style controllers technically can function in AT-class machines, but once you get past 486 era machines, you are very likely to run in to things that will prevent the controller from working.

Yes, that’s my experience too. The only MFM/RLL controllers I was able to access properly on pentium era motherboards were 16bit ones, with disabled or none internal BIOS of their own, although I had to either configure them for secondary I/O address (0x170) disabling onboard secondary IDE controller, or had to disable both primary and secondary integrated IDE controller all together to make them work.