[net.micro] A second hard disk for an IBM XT

davidk@dartvax.UUCP (David C. Kovar) (01/26/84)

   I am considering buying a second hard disk for an IBM XT,
mainly due to the fact that I am planning on bringing up either
Coherent or PC/IX but I still want to have 6 meg or so for DOS.
Awhile back, one of the PC magazines reported that the IBM 10M
fixed disk was one of the best out, even though it was not all
that good in itself. Is this still the case? If not, who sells
the best 10M-20M fixed disk? How do the prices compare? Are they
completely compatible (if there is such a thing) or will PC/IX
refuse to read the second disk? Please mail replies and thanks
in advance.
-- 
David C. Kovar    
	    Usenet:	{linus, decvax}!dartvax!davidk
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			Dartmouth College
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			03755

"The difficult we did yesterday, the impossible we are doing now."

johnl@haddock.UUCP (01/31/84)

#R:dartvax:-64600:haddock:13200007:000:743
haddock!johnl    Jan 30 11:19:00 1984

At the moment, if you want to run PC/IX on your PC, you need the IBM
controller and disks.  PC/IX is happy to use both disks.  It even lets
you define more than one partition per disk, which is occasionally handy
and can make selective backup more convenient.

We have a bunch of two-disk systems, some with Miniscribe disks and some
more recent ones with Seagates.  It appears that if your disks work at
all, they'll work forever.  We had some DOA trouble but our dealer (Sears
in downtown Boston) swapped them for us.  Another problem was a power
supply that worked fine with one disk but feeped when you plugged in two.
Again, they swapped it and we've had no trouble since.

John Levine, ima!johnl

PS:  Followups to net.micro.pc, please.