lihan@walt.cc.utexas.edu (Bruce Bostwick) (10/22/89)
OK, this is going to sound really stupid but...
I have in my hand a hard drive of unknown specifications. It's made by CMS,
if anyone recognizes that company, and came to us without any sort of
controller. I am interested in putting this drive into a Compaq portable
that originally came with two full-height floppy drives. (The HD is a half-
height machine.)
My questions are these:
-What will I have to obtain for the retrofit? Include info on what I'll need
to take into account selecting controllers, etc.
-How do I determine if the drive is even 100% functional? Will I have to take
it someplace and get it bench tested? If so, how much can I expect to pay?
-What will I have to do DOS-wise once the little bugger is safely installed
physically? Assume I know nothing about DOS other than by using floppies,
since our machine has never had a HD and I've never installed one.
-What is unobvious about the whole procedure that doesn't fit into the above
categories? This is a fairly expensive toy and I don't want to screw this up.
Thanks in advance for the support -- no need to post your replies, just e-mail
either to me:
lihan@vondrake.cc.utexas.edu
or :
{cleon@vondrake.cc|doug@utig.ig}.utexas.edu
with questions or help.
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=======================================================================unkydave@shumv1.uucp (David Bank) (10/22/89)
To lihan@walt.cc.texas.edu:
CMI is most probably "Computer Memories Incorporated" of Chatsworth
California. The are best known (in infamy) as the makers of the ORIGINAL
20 MB hard drive for the PC/AT.....the one that was guaranteed to
crash within 6 months of use. Yeah, that one.
Anyway, they still exist (assuming they didn't get nailed in
that earthquake) but, wonders of wonders, they don't make hard drives
any more. Gee....imagine that.
Their tech support is now handled by a company called PRC. Don't
have the number handy, but they are out in CA as well. If you call
CMI, they'll be all too happy to give you PRC's number. I think that
they'd like to forget they ever made hard drives! :-)
Can you use the hard drive in a PC??? That depends. If it is
a standard ST412/506 interface drive (probably is) then I'd say
"yes" without reservation. I have an OLD (1983) CMI 10 MB that I
used to run a BBS on. Hardiest darn drive I ever saw. Slow as
heck, but a tough bugger. Ran fine for 2 years off of a Western
Digital WX2A controller. Still in use, in fact, but not nearly
as much.
Anyway, that's the pointer in the right direction. Hope
it helps out.
Unky Dave
unkydave@shumv1.ncsu.edu
:wqdavidsen@crdos1.crd.ge.COM (Wm E Davidsen Jr) (10/24/89)
In article <4269@ncsuvx.ncsu.edu>, unkydave@shumv1.uucp (David Bank) writes: | CMI is most probably "Computer Memories Incorporated" of Chatsworth | California. The are best known (in infamy) as the makers of the ORIGINAL | 20 MB hard drive for the PC/AT.....the one that was guaranteed to | crash within 6 months of use. Yeah, that one. They did have problems, but a lot of the bad rap was undeserved. WD shipped a batch of funny chips to IBM in that timeframe. IBM supplied a diagnostic and replaced the controller if it had a certain run # on the chip. We have several hundred ATs and about 2/3 of the failures were the controller. I have one of these which has 5+ years powered up, although typical was more like 15000 hours (that was about rated MTBF). These drives did have a problem with infant mortality, as you say in the first six months. If they lived a year they ran a long time. -- bill davidsen (davidsen@crdos1.crd.GE.COM -or- uunet!crdgw1!crdos1!davidsen) "The world is filled with fools. They blindly follow their so-called 'reason' in the face of the church and common sense. Any fool can see that the world is flat!" - anon