On Wed, 14 Jan 2004, Bruce Lane wrote:
> Hi, gang,
>
> I have an Atlantic Research 7000 series datascope that is
> dependent on an MFM drive to run itself. It works fine at the
> moment (testament to the durability of early drives, I suppose),
> but I would like to be able to take an image snapshot of its
> hard drive in case of failure.
>
> With that in mind, I'm starting to accumulate a small variety
> of MFM controllers (going for variety because I have no idea
> what the determining factor is going to be in which controller
> is able to read the drive).
Bruce, the determining factor is the controller that
formatted/wrote to the drive in the first place. With MFM - or
more accurately, ST506/412 - it is not common to have a drive
readable by a `foreign' controller. In the case of WD controllers
the later series utilized what was called their "SuperBIOS" IIRC,
and any of the controllers could read any other SuperBIOS controller's
output. Caveat that with differences between MFM and RLL.
The best approach would be to determine the controller that is in
the Datascope.
- don
> So far, I've found a WD1002-WA2 and a WD1003-WA2. I still have
> memories of the last and (supposedly) best MFM board that WD
> made, in the form of the WD1006V-MM2, but I've had no luck
> finding one as yet (nor do I know if I really even need one).
>
> Suggestions for what to go after would be greatly appreciated.
>
> Thanks much.
>
>
> -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
> Bruce Lane, Owner & Head Hardware Heavy,
> Blue Feather Technologies -- http://www.bluefeathertech.com
> kyrrin (at) bluefeathertech do/t c=o=m
> "If Salvador Dali had owned a computer, would it have been equipped with surreal ports?"
>
>
>
Received on Wed Jan 14 2004 - 17:20:41 GMT