I got an Apple ProFile hard drive.

From: Joe <rigdonj_at_intellistar.net>
Date: Tue Feb 17 07:45:03 1998

At 09:46 PM 2/16/98 -0800, you wrote:
>On Sun, 15 Feb 1998, John Rollins wrote:
>
>> >But, it squeaks. You know, like a water pump on a car before it blows
>> >(that's the pump bearings, BTW). Does anyone have any
check-out/maintenance
>> >tips for this drive? The hard drive is labeled "Seagate model ST-506".
>> Sounds like the ProFile card is just an ST-506 hard drive interface. A
>> ST-506 drive is REALLY old. I'm not an expert on the old hard
>> drives/interfaces, so I'll let someone else figure all that out, but I can
>
>The ST-506 is a 5mb disk and is the first built by Seagate, I believe.

   It was. ST stands for Seagate Technologies. The ST-506 was the first
practical harddrive and became so popular that everyone standardized on
that interface and we still call it a ST-506 interface.
>
>> tell you that it is very old. Does the ProFile need a seperate power
>> cord(does it have it's own ps), or does it get power from the Apple II?
>> And if the ProFile is just an ST-506 interface, does that mean I could just
>> plug one of my old ST-225's or other ST-506 type drives intoa ProFile card?
>
>Unless you are able to patch the software, you should be able to replace
>it with an ST-225 or any other MFM drive, provided that the new one has
>at least 306 cylinders and 4 heads. More is OK, but less will cost you
>storage space.

   If you use a drive with fewer heads or cylinders than the 506, you will
probably get an error and it won't work. It should be easy to get a drive
with more heads and cylinders then no problem except the extra heads and
cylinders will be ignored and you won't get the benefit of the extra
capacity. That's a small price to pay for not having to try and hack the
software!
>
>If you can patch the software, your options are much wider.
>

   Yes and more work!

  Joe
Received on Tue Feb 17 1998 - 07:45:03 GMT