zaz@jersey (Todd Koeckeritz) (02/27/91)
In article <1991Feb20.181947.10350@oracle.com> mwang@oracle.com (Michael Wang) writes: >I have a question about adding a second hard disk to a Compaq 386/20e. .... >procedure before, I would really appreciate any insight you can give me. >Thanks! > > >Michael wang >mwang@oracle.com WARNING: Compaq lovers will not want to read this. Okay, so that was a little extreme. Really though I do have a major problem with "industry leaders" forcing proprietary hardware (my not so favorite company from Cupertino included). You may have a problem here. When I went to add a second drive to a Compaq DeskPro 25MHz wee had only one solution available from Compaq and its dealers. That was to pay $5000 and they would give us a second box with a drive in it. I was disturbed about this as we could buy a Wren 300 MB 15 Mbit/s drive for about $1600. So we decided to blaze new ground a forget about Compaq. By the time we were done with the installation we broke about even (after my customer had bought my time). The basic problem is that the Compaq did not include any formatting routines for the drive and the software that would do it would not be made available to us either by Compaq or our vendor. We ended up having to buy another controller so that we had the low level format routines (a side benefit of this was that the controller was also 15Mbits/s). We eventually got both drives re-formatted and installed, but the original Compaq drive was completely unreliable and our system (running SCO Xenix 2.3.2) was dramatically slower, spending lots of time waiting for disk i/o. The solution was to replace the Compaq disk drive with the with the same drive (non-Compaq though, I believe the drive was a Micropolis or MiniScribe) and things finally worked fine. My message is beware buying and upgrading Compaq equipment. They have taken a stance that diametrically opposes the main stream of the market. This is an entirely undefendable position. You can most likely add that second disk drive to your computer, however be prepared for some heartache and extra expense in replacing your controller. I would also ask that people keep the propreitary nature of Compaq equipment in mind when you go to purchase your next computer system(s). You must use their memory and their disk drives. This would not be much of a concern if their prices were within line with other available generic parts, but they aren't. You _WILL_ spent extra money to own and upgrade your Compaq, be sure that this is the way that you want to spend your money. I have my fireproof long johns on and am ready for the flames that I am sure I will get from the people who like their Compaqs, :-). -- +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Todd Koeckeritz zaz@jersey (crash!orbit!jersey!zaz) | | Euler Solutions, Inc., Minneapolis, MN, USA H:(612)537-4264 W:(612)635-0088| +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+