Uncreative Labs

Posted: Wed Oct 21, 2009 1:57 am

I need ALOT of advice on this one
I just got a BRAND NEW Micropolis 1304 MFM hard drive. I mean BRAND NEW, the first time i plugged it in tonite was it's first time being plugged in EVER. It was new for an old DATAMEDIA File server but never needed, my dad gave it to me. So i plugged it in, but it kept shutting it off, so i popped the top, it hadn't suffered stiction, but the Head assembly was stuck, wouldn't budge. i had to whack it with a screwdriver and push against the motor with my fingers to get it to move. My question is this. Is it safe to use this drive? or after being turned on for the first time in almost 25 years actually gonna cause it to give out all sorts of problems. It's going to get it's first 8 hours just spinning and spinning tonite, tommorrow, if it's still goin, i will give it an LLF and see how it works

Joined: 03 Feb 2006 Posts: 488 Location: pennsylvanai

first look it up on a list abd BE SURE it is a MFM and not an esdi
they look idenbtical
but smoke and smells will be the only result if yoiu are wrong.
a esdi contror is 16 bit card ( at style) and uses wd1007 chips. not a huge card.
a mfm controller ( at) uses wd1003 chips.
esdi drives were ONLY USED on AT 286 and faster.
there never were XT esdi drives.

the esdi DRIVE , you have to look it up on an old lost
the cables are the SAME
the wiring is DIFFERENT

is this the full height drive with a flip up pc board and a recess underneath?
I talked to two friends who worked at Monroe calculator and they used a lot of these drives
they were famous for the transistors failing
these are 3 lead devid=ces with a tab screwed to the frame.
BUT ll format it and use it.

I had a couple that would let themselves be formatted and would quit in a few minutews.
-stop spinning
the BEST mfm drive ever was a mitsubishi mr 535.
the seagates were ok but the pcb on the st-225 always burned up a chip
and the st-251 had the stiction problem.

some boards from st-213 would work on st-225 ( look for "st-225 tiny letters by the big hole"

I have 2 st-4096 but they are HEAVY. and a IBM
esdi ( looks like a mfm with a jillion errors on the map)

Posted: Wed Oct 21, 2009 3:15 am

it's MFM, i've got an old scott meuller book, has all the specs up till 1998 i think it's MFM, i'll ll and see what it does, it's been spinnin since i made the post, i don't know if it's got the flip up board, i moved the jumpers with tweezers, doesn't have scorch marks or nuttin, this is a brand new drive, for it's time brand new. i have a 225 and a 251, no problems with them either Razz

and ironically i just got one of those mitsubishis, it works great too. i have the best luck with mfm drives Smile

Joined: 19 Apr 2006 Posts: 261 Location: WisConSin

I've always had bad luck with Micropolus & especially Miniscribe, every one I encountered was junk, maybe for the reason you state with the head sticking.

Something that I remember is that some of the Micropolus and Miniscribe drives WERE NOT fully MFM compatible, they ran at a much lower speed, I found that out the hard way on one Miniscribe and crapped it out after changing to a wd controller.

Posted: Wed Oct 21, 2009 8:57 pm

dunno, i have a 40mb miniscribe that works wonders the wd controllers i have, i'm gonna try the micropolis later today with my 16-bit everex controller, then step up to the 16-bit wd1003-wah i have, i had to turn it off before i went to work, so hopefully the heads still move properly, after 25 years, maybe it just needs to be used Rolling Eyes

Joined: 03 Feb 2006 Posts: 488 Location: pennsylvanai

with xp controllers : other brands" cannot be supstituted for a wd
but the wd can use a drive llf with a DTC card

if you go to an eqarlier wd bios if the drive was formatted with a newer wd bios
it will be really screwy.
AT controllers:
Look at the chips either wd 1003 or wd 1006.
the wd 1006 chip and the everex I had used that chip could to 1:1 interleave.
if you set up a drive ( llf) as 1:1 and replace the controller with a 1:2 card like the ibm or wd 1003, it will work but REALLY be slow.
otherwise there is good compatibility between AT type hd controllers.
remember the XT and AT llf are different.
you can use an xt 8 bit card in an AT, but no cmos setup and slow as hell.

Posted: Fri Oct 23, 2009 5:04 am

ironically i have to use the everex controller as the wd1003-wah doesn't work with the drive. i've noticed the WD1003-wah will work with certain drives and others it wont, BUT the everex drive will see every mfm drive i throw at it. I have an st-21/22 RLL and a couple rll drives i'm gonna tinker with too.

Joined: 03 Feb 2006 Posts: 488 Location: pennsylvanai

i just read the manual for the card,. it is
on the web.,

it looks like there are primary and secondary adress jumpers
and a warning about faster bus speeds
maybe the 286 had a 12 mhz bus?
try an older mb.

Posted: Sat Oct 24, 2009 2:09 am

could you post a link to the manual?

Joined: 03 Feb 2006 Posts: 488 Location: pennsylvanai

http://www.wdc.com/en/library/legacy/controllerboards/1002wah.pdf
just found this

http://www.dcllabs.net/docs/1003wa2.txt

this is a hard to read text file
save it and it is very easy to read with edit

Posted: Sat Oct 24, 2009 4:29 am

cool, thanks

Joined: 03 Feb 2006 Posts: 488 Location: pennsylvanai

btw
many older at / 286 systems can only SEE 17 sectors.
one of those big controller cards has a special type that is one thinbg to the cmos setup and another to the card that permits a 30b rll drive to be used.
and still seen by the cmos as 17 sectors
it is likely a rll controller. similar in appearance to the ibm and wd 1003 cards.
I don't recall if it is the st-238 or the full height 30m
equiv.
I looked in my old files but could not locate the doc

Joined: 05 Aug 2008 Posts: 23

This is a common problem with old MFM drives. By the way, this drive is not as old as you think. It is a 40MB drive. Looking at my old Infoworld, PC Magazine and Computing issues, 40MB drives did not appear in the mail order ads until very late 1986, and were close to a thousand dollars with a controller. Even in early 1990, a 40MB drive was over $300. Your drive could be anywhere from 18-22 years old, but probably not 25 years old (1984).

Let it run for a while, then do a low level format with something like Spin Rite, then a DOS format and look for bad sectors.

Posted: Sat Oct 31, 2009 8:04 am

thank you for clearing that up, as far as the age goes, it's seen 2 days of regular use and seems to be holding up quite well, it will be a good addition to another XT i just got.

Additional, not sure if this should be in a different thread, but i also got a
Plus + Hardcard 20, sucker works, has Compaq Dos 3.1 on it, but i can't find a utilities disk ANYWHERE for it, might one of you have it in your files?

Joined: 03 Feb 2006 Posts: 488 Location: pennsylvanai

I don't know if it is what you need but I have files
about the hard card.