5.25" low-capacity hard disks (was Re: Is it a Lisa or Mac XL?!)

From: Tothwolf <tothwolf_at_concentric.net>
Date: Thu Nov 29 19:28:00 2001

On Thu, 29 Nov 2001, Ethan Dicks wrote:
> --- Tony Duell <ard_at_p850ug1.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>
> > I beliueve that in the Apple Profile, only the ST506 HDA (and maybe the
> > spindle motor board) is used. The standard control board is not. Instead
> > there's an Apple board that connectes directly to the index sensor,
> > cylinder 0 sensor, stepper motor, and heads.
>
> It's reasons like this that I buy the old 5.25" mechs I see. I was
> profoundly disappointed this year when I bought a Tandon TM602S (as
> found in a Commodore D9060 hard disk) for $5, only to find that all
> the fine wires that enter and exit the HDA have been snipped. The
> board is there, but there is no harness to plug into it. I suppose I
> can test the board on one of the TM602S drives I have that work and
> put it in the appropriate pile as a spare for the future. I have less
> confidence I could restore the harness. I suppose that if I have a
> head-crash someday, I could plunder its wiring, but there'd be the
> risk that the wiring was removed because _that_ had already happened
> to the previous owner.

I bought a Toshiba 8086 laptop a few years ago at auction, and found
someone had drilled the interface connector on the side of the drive. This
particular drive has the platter motor directly mounted to the board, so
the pcboard seals the media inside the housing. I ended up cleaning the
outside of the drive best I could, and breaking it down inside lab grade
plastic bags. I never have finished work on it, tho it's all still sealed
in plastic, waiting for me to replace its interface connector...

-Toth
Received on Thu Nov 29 2001 - 19:28:00 GMT