Seagate ST-412 (1983)
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 21 พ.ค. 2020
- This is a drive I could not fix unfortunately. I even swapped a different set of platters into in temporarily, which did not work. I was able to use the PCB and faceplate from it on my other (working) ST-412 though, so now I have one almost perfect unit. I might try and make a plexiglass top for this one.
- วิทยาศาสตร์และเทคโนโลยี
I've never attempted a platter swap. Frankly, I never would have thought it would even work.
Yes, it can work! These old drives are so crude they don’t mind too much.
The secret for this is that you can always low-level format these drives. The low-level format on an ST506/ESDI drive is not just a sector-zeroing but a true hardware format, where the tracks are being rewritten completely from scratch. So if on such a drive you have damaged platters, you can put in platters from another donor drive which are in good state. As long as you were careful to not break anything in the process, the platters are absolutely clean (no fingerprints, dust, etc...) and the rest of the hard disk (heads, motors, electronics) is OK, after having done a low-level format you'll be able to partition and format the drive, making it ready to be used again. On IDE and in general newer drives from 1990 to today this is no longer possible for us "common mortals", as the low-level format is doable only by the factory with specific equipment. Some older SCSI drives could still be low-level formatted, even if with voice-coil actuator, as the format routine is encoded in their firmware, which can be recalled by the SCSI controller issuing the specific "format drive" command to the disk.
Some months ago I revived an old 10 MB Miniscribe drive which suffered from stiction and had a quite dirty platter (it's a single platter drive) due to moisture infiltration. I removed the platter, cleaned and polished it with some polishing cream, cleaned the heads with isopropyl alchool, put the drive back together and performed a low-level format on it. I didn't had much hopes about it being brought back to working state, but to my surprise I was able to partition and format it, with just a couple of dozens of KB in bad sectors. The drive was back to life.
No reason it wouldn't on drives like this
Nice. I am thinking of buying a Seagate Elite-23 for the fun of it
Awesome! Those are fun drives.
@@80sCompaqPC They have a fat stack of platters lol
They do! I think they have 14 if I remember correctly?
@@80sCompaqPC yeah something like that
What was the error you were experiencing? Since you swapped platters that suggests to me you're experiencing data errors, which could be damaged heads or faulty head electronics. Since you were able to salvage the PCB though, I imagine the heads themselves are probably damaged. It's a shame but at least it's nothing overly rare.
It was giving me a “track 0 bad” error in the DOS format I believe (it’s been a while but I’m pretty sure that was the issue). I tried several sets of platters and all yielded the same result, so, yeah, I believe the heads are likely bad. Makes a great display piece still though!
I know very little about ESDI and MFM drives. Does MFM, RLL, and ESDI use the same cable? Also is it possible to use a ESDI drive on a MFM controller card? Can I use any MFM controller card on any MFM drive?
I believe the cables are the same, however, ESDI and MFM are completely different, so you can’t use MFM drives on an ESDI controller or vise versa. What you have to keep in mind with MFM controllers are that a lot of older ones would only work with 10MB and 20MB drives, so look for ones like the Western Digital “XT GEN” if you want a universal controller that works with any drive.
@@80sCompaqPC Thanks! I looked and I see 8-bit controllers and 16-bit controllers, are they different?
@@80sCompaqPC Found one I like, will a Western Digital WD1003-WA2 MFM controller work in a Packard Bell 2440?
C:\ DOS Unfortunately, probably not. That is too new of a computer. However, if you can disable the onboard IDE, you might be able to use an older 8-bit controller on that Packard Bell. The 8-bit cards have their own BIOS, so they can work on newer hardware occasionally.
@@80sCompaqPC Uhhh. I am trying to find an older 486 or 386 computer but it seems impossible, where do I look?
Thats why they took so long to turn on very old drives
And they are huge compared to the new drives
Yes, just the spindle motor alone in this drive weighs more than most new drives in their entirety!
@@80sCompaqPC old technology surprises me Everytime
Platters look fine and the top head looks ok, is there damage to one of the heads? Does it even show up on a computer? Also I've never seen a platter swap before, so if it still doesn't work it is probably a damaged or non-working head.
There is some small gouges on both of the platters. Yes, you can swap the platters in these drives if you’re careful. I’m thinking the heads are probably shot.
It’ll low-level format fine, but attempting a DOS format gives a “format failure.”
@@80sCompaqPC I would try cleaning the heads first with isopropyl alcohol and looking for any damage to the heads. This is a nice drive!
I've done platter swaps to fix a pair of ST-412 hard drives as well as an ST-225. I source the replacements them from dead drives. I've had good luck. The oxide media tends to break down and flake off if the drives are not stored in a climate controlled location. You have to be careful moving the head assembly off of the platters with out damaging the media.
C:\ DOS cleaning the heads could be worth a try, but I’m not holding my breath. Either way I’m not throwing the drive out though.
ESDI80 very cool you have had success with platter swaps! Yes, the oxide doesn’t always age well unfortunately. And yes, you definitely have to be careful when removing the heads.
I remembered that I had a dead Maxtor XT-4380 ESDI drive that had only one damaged (crashed) platter, so I have 7 potentially good thin film platters. I will be attempting to swap two of these into an ST-238 (essentially an RLL certified ST-255) and seeing what happens!
Simple as recordable writer from hard drive? 1:27
Poor old girl
Yeah, I was hoping I could revive it, but couldn’t unfortunately.