Replacing hard drive in Tandy 1110HD

[samalex]

I have a Tandy 1110HD that I haven't booted in probably 5+ years, and today when I pulled it out and booted it up it's giving a Hard Disk Read Failure. I don't have the original manual, but i did find this link which shows how to get to the hard drive - http://www.8bit-micro.com/1110HD-repairs.htm . and from this I'm guessing it's an XT-IDE drive (40-pin). If so is there any way to find one of these? I have a Toshiba T1000SE that I can't find the power cable for, so possibly I could steal the drive from it, not sure. Also is there any option to use one of those IDE to SD Micro or Compact Flash converts?

And secondly does anyone know if there's a way to get a new battery or even somehow replace the cells in the existing battery?

Thanks for any input. I'd love to breath more life into this little system. thanks --

Sam

 

[Juror22]

I have a couple of these and I have been getting the spare parts together to restore the last one (floppy belt, some fuses, the internal watch battery) and I have been looking for a battery as well. I saw (on the web) where someone had attempted to use a similar sized SLA that was 1.3 AH instead of the original 1.6, but there was no followup on whether that had worked out. My current one has a connor 2024 in it (IDE 40 pin) and I was going to try out putting an adapter and SD card in to see if it would work, while I have it apart.

I assume that the instructions for setting up the new drive would follow this... http://support.radioshack.com/support_computer/doc1/1987.htm

 

[billdeg]

[reply removed, not relevant]

 

[pearce_jj]

This says that the drive supports both XT and AT modes, however the XT mode doesn't appear to be ATA-2 8-bit. Hence a CompactFlash card probably won't work (though it would be worth a go).

 

[fibrewire]

Conner drives in 1110hd

Conner drives in 1110hd

This says that the drive supports both XT and AT modes, however the XT mode doesn't appear to be ATA-2 8-bit. Hence a CompactFlash card probably won't work (though it would be worth a go).

Other drives work but height is an issue. I had a 40mb and 80mb Conner drives that I gave away after I realized the thing won't close with either new drive in it.

 

[Juror22]

Totally correct about the CF card - its a no go, but I had to try - I wonder if there are pin issues or more than that. The adapter card has a small LED that come on when the drive is connected, but it doesn't light in the 1110. I can't get it to read the original (connor) drive either (it spins up and down). This one may be a floppy only machine for a while.

 

[pearce_jj]

Does it have an expansion slot?

 

[Stone]

Does it have an expansion slot?

No, it doesn't. But it does have a serial and a parallel port which means it could use a HDD in another computer via a serial or parallel network setup.

 

[Juror22]

That's a good idea - I forgot about those options.

 

[Stone]

U-Net II is an excellent, easy to use program for such a setup. It connects via parallel ports and if you have two parallel ports on the server you can print directly from the workstation.

 

[wesleyfurr]

Juror22 - did you have any luck finding a replacement floppy drive belt? I've chased options, but have not yet purchased anything...

Thanks,

Wesley

 

[Unknown_K]

Juror22 - did you have any luck finding a replacement floppy drive belt? I've chased options, but have not yet purchased anything...

Thanks,

Wesley

Should be threads here for that floppy belt.

 

[Juror22]

The best way to find information on these (or a replacement) is to look online for the "Matsushita EME-213" drive belts. They were used in synthesizers and the folks restoring those have a pretty active community as well. I think the first one that I got was marketed for the Matsushita in a synthesizer, but it fit and worked. I also saw someone reference that they had silicone belts for the panasonic version of this laptop, but I haven't been able to find those. Neither of my original floppy drives worked after installing the last belt that I bought, so I put a replacement floppy drive in, using an adapter cable that I built. As a result, I'm not sure I would recommend it (the belt) although the drives could both be bad.

I haven't been able to bring myself to disassemble the floppy drive on my working 1110 to test the belt and see if that is the issue or not.

 

[tsb]

I can't get it to read the original (connor) drive either (it spins up and down).

Hey everybody. It seems many years has passed, but I had the same problem with Tandy 1110HD and very Connor 2024. I managed to make it work with this hack

.

Basically it starts spinning but does not seek. The reason is that parking magnet became too strong for head to detach itself and start seeking. Because the magnet is covered with some kind of resin and with time it dissolved. So, with that resin disappearance the clearance between the head notch and parking magnet is too small so the head does not have much power to de-park. You need just open the drive up and create more clearance by using something like a tape. After making this trick mine started working (for how long -- I do not know). Still waiting for someone come up with HDD emulation options for those machines.