Uncreative Labs

Joined: 19 Apr 2006 Posts: 261 Location: WisConSin

I have never encountered an ESDI hard drive only MFM, RLL, SCSI & IDE. It physically looks like a full height 5 1/4" MFM hd (which I wanted) and instead is an ESDI.

Is there any interface card for this that would work on an XT?

Is this drive of any use really on any machine I don't think I've ever seen an ESDI card, unless winchester is one.

On a side note I just picked up a pair of TRS-80's one model III and one model IV sadly each has a problem, the III seems to have corrupt logic, the IV seems to have a bad monitor, no disks so I'm not sure how to get them back up and running.

I also have gotten a strange EISA ??? Compaq VGA card with an AT&T chipset, dated 1993 and an Everex ega card along with a multi I/O 8 bit floppy controller and an intel XT date and time card with 256kb of ram.

All this was thanx to the local you pay $0.25 a pound to trash your pc thingy in town. I saw literally 10 pallets of PIV 3ghz systems trashed, I wish it were easier to get stuff out, damn Personal data BS.

Thanx
Ryan

Joined: 27 Jan 2007 Posts: 274 Location: USA

Most the esdi drive i ever saw were in the ibm PS/2. the controller cards i usally see are in MCA and i doubt an XT has an mca slot. how ever there are alot of 8bit card for that drive and winchester is one company. i think i might have a few but there probly buried under 2 feet of parts! These recycleing things are a good way to get parts. i allways kwow when its gona happen because i got friends that work for the county. Man its sad to see some one destroy a computer over 100mhz let alone any. there no coputers in other foreing countrys so why waste them, plus there many people out there in the usa that would want a p90. heck the fastest working computer i own is on 166mhz, (i aint got a chance to fix that athlon 64 i found last time.) Poeple are stupid for despoing of a p4 @3ghz. hell these things can run Vista. if you want your data gone, sell the computer and ether turn the old drive into an external one or bury it in your backyard Smile

Joined: 19 Apr 2006 Posts: 261 Location: WisConSin

Generally the computers at the recycling place are either
A. Very old
B. Broken
C. Both

But even a broken complete P4 is worth something given the fact the parts could be scavenged.

In the days of the $103 after rebate comcrap computers at Best Buy folks are going to just toss it after it quites booting up correctly in 3-6 months.

Sad to say but that is the way of things.

Joined: 03 Feb 2006 Posts: 488 Location: pennsylvanai

esdi drivews are a strange breed.
they are only used with 16 bit controllers.
Go thru yiour smaller 16 bit "mfm" cards ald look for one with a wd1007 chip on it, that will be a esdi controller.
the bios usually responds like a xt MFM card " debug g=c:800:5"
for a low level format if required.
ther strange thing is that it LIES about heads and cyl.
a serious case of trasnslation. I think the 286 requires type 1 drive to be set not sure.
these drives do not have the bios limit of 528 megs on older machines'
and thay are VE RY fast.
mfm/rll cables can be used
BUT do not hook up to a mfm or rll card, it will blow up the drive.
adaptech and others did make controllers for these drives, thy may have the wd1007 chip on them. they are 1:1 interleave.