olsonr@acfcluster.nyu.edu (03/09/91)
Hi all. Awhile back I asked if anyone knew about getting a scsi controller for a scsi hard disk that I wanted to put in a Model 50Z. Well, after a spending some more money, and reading the manuals, and installing the disks, and finally just figuring it out for myself, I have now a PS/2 with 135 total meg of disk space. Here is how it worked: I was given information by quite a few people (thank you all :) ) refering to companies that manufactured MCA scsi cards. I settled with a company called Future Domain because it was the only card that offered a power supply as well as scsi port (which is what I needed) I got the package from Future Domain (total was about $250 for everything) and inside I got manuals for almost everything under the scsi sun adaptions. CD-ROM's? Tape Backup? Hard disks? No problem. They've got a manual for it. Xenix? Hey, we got it. Novell 286/368 file server? Got those too. And a disk for everything. Installing the board was easy enough. Installing the drive was not so easy. The drive (which I said was made by Plus Development, but it turned out to be manufactured by QUANTUM and just had Plus' sticker on it) was a pure interal drive. Hey, no problem, I figured. I'll just put it in the second drive bay next to the 31/2 disk drive I've already got. Easy? Yeah, sure. It's a damn good thing that my warranty has pretty much gone the way of the Condor, because I certainly voided it by installing that drive. The extra drive bay is supposed to take an IBM product only. Or, at least, something that can mate with the extra slot that sticks out half an inch from the disk controller card. Deciding that this machine would never have another 31/2 disk drive wasn't difficult. But ripping that damn slot off the disk controller card was *difficult*. I mean, really really difficult. But, off it came and into the trash it went. Now there was space for the drive. But to have the drive *properly* sit in the bay, you need a skid not unlike that found under the 31/2 disk drive. It has a tounge that you press to click and remove the drive from it's mounting. It's an extremely well made set up. I purchased the skid (as well as a SCSI cable and power cable) from PS Solutions in Dallas Texas (I don't have the info on me at the moment...sorry). They were very helpful in getting the right parts for this thing. As a matter of fact, if you are going to do what I did, go and get your own fifty-pin cable that is *short*. A foot is more than enough. The cable that Future Domain provided was two feet long with an extra connector in the middle. Stuffing all that inside a model 50 is impossible. Another little problem I had was that PS Solutions did not send screws with the skid. The drive certainly came with none. So! I scoured the hardware stores for the correct screws, and no luck. My suggestion (and answer) was to go to a electronics repair store and get them. If you want to take a screw with you to show them, take it off the 31/2 disk drive. Trust me, it won't hurt. Get four. And washers are not necessary. The drive fits in the bay...snugly. I mean...snugly. The drive is built so that the cables come up from the bottom of the back of the drive, and pressed all the way against the disk controller card (sans disk slot) is still a little tight. To put the cover back on, you may have to snap off parts of the front of the skid (which I had to do). No big deal though, it still sits in there properly. The manual, for all the things it talks about, is a little ambiguous as to errors. I installed the disk, powered the machine, put the diagnostics disk in. The manual told me exactly what to do. That was nice. But when it didn't work, the manual was less than helpful. The problem I had was that the disk was not talking with the computer. Future Domain's error read "SCSI drive not found. Check cables and power." Well, great. Cables and power are fine. Any other solutions? The manual said that if it wasn't the cables, then there was a conflict with the drive. No kidding. I spent *three* hours trying every register/address in the book. No go. The drive simply refused to communicate with the computer. I called Future Domain. They were very nice but told me to do everything I just spent three hours doing. No thanks, guys. They suggested I called Plus. I called Plus. All they would tell me is to call the 900 number they have for tech support. I cannot call a 900 number anywhere here, so that was no good. They said the tech people would call back. The drive's been working great for two days now and they still haven't called me back. The solution? Factory settings! Beware factory settings! Future Domain's card was configured correctly in its factory settings, but the drive was not. More precisely, it was configured according to the factory specs, but the drive had to jumpers installed on its board to specify "SCSI device 6" What did I do? I removed one of the jumpers. (Out of sheer boredom and disgust) and re-installed the drive. The rest is history. Future Domain's board and the computer recognized the drive right away. At a hundred and five meg, it took 82 minutes to do a surface scan, but it located a few errors that I have (using Norton Utilities) put out of buisness so they won't conflict with anything. The drive came low-level formatted, so that wasn't a problem either. Future Domain's software "Disk Maestro" could do all the partitions and formatting for me, but I decided to use DOS' FDISK. (If you are using lower than 4.00 DOS, use the FD software to partition the disk, especially if you want to parition the *entire* disk as one single disk. I partitioned it into three disks: D: (30 meg) E: (30 meg) and F: (40 meg). FD needs to put some files in the config.sys file, but once that's done, it's *speed* *city*. I am not kidding. This drive is almost three times faster than the slow-poke drive that IBM put in the computer to begin with. PageMaker under Windows lumbers along, we all know this, but with this drive, I could swear that I have a 386 machine (which I do not). I'm moving most of my software onto this drive because it is just so *fast!* Well, that's the gloss. I'm sorry I don't have all the specs and phone #'s with me, but if you send me some e-mail I'll be more than happy to give it to you. Plus, to avoid the inevitable flames, I will post the specs when I get back from England. Later Ron olsonr@kramden.nyu.edu