Connect a Seagate ST-225 HD to an Intel MB?

[ZVladimir]

Hi to all,

If this is off-topic, please advise where to get more info.

I have a friend's old '90-92 Seagate ST-225, 20MB hard drive and want to
connect it my pc only long enough to access and save the files that are on
it.

This hard drive came with a controller (expansion card) that I inserted in
one of my ISA slots. It fit, although it is smaller than the ISA slot.

From what I have found, this hard drive is a MFM drive with a ST412
interface.

I would like to know how to configure my pc ( and if necessary to configure
the hard drive or its controller card) to be able to access this hard drive.

Thanks in advance for any help

 

[Rod Speed]

If this is off-topic, please advise where to get more info.

Its completely on topic here.

I have a friend's old '90-92 Seagate ST-225, 20MB hard drive and want to
connect it my pc only long enough to access and save the files that are on it.

This hard drive came with a controller (expansion card) that I inserted
in one of my ISA slots. It fit, although it is smaller than the ISA slot.

Its just an 8 bit ISA card. It may well be intended for a PC or XT.

From what I have found, this hard drive
is a MFM drive with a ST412 interface.
Correct.

I would like to know how to configure my pc
( and if necessary to configure the hard drive or its
controller card) to be able to access this hard drive.

You need to provide more info on the ISA card. Likely
its one of the biosed cards. It should have some ID on it.

If its a biosed card, it should work fine and handle the drive for itself.

If it isnt a biosed card, it gets more tricky, but may still be doable.

 

[Eric Gisin]

Start by disabling the Primary IDE channel in BIOS - Integrated. You will be
able to manually add vanilla IDE with Add New HW, which might work.

 

[ZVladimir]

Rod,

Its a Western Digital 8-bit card labled WD1002A-WX1.
There are a couple of jumpers on it ...
I had it all connected, the cables, the card and booted my pc. My cmos is
just presently set to read my primary master hd and secondary master hd and
secondary slave cd burner drive. I had to disconnect my primary slave cd
drive to get a power supply for the ST-225.

After boot-up on Win98SE, all comes up (as normal) except the ST-225.

Vlad.

 

[Rod Speed]

Its a Western Digital 8-bit card labled WD1002A-WX1.
http://th99.pley.org/c/U-Z/20217.htm

There are a couple of jumpers on it ...

I had it all connected, the cables, the card and booted my pc.
My cmos is just presently set to read my primary master hd
and secondary master hd and secondary slave cd burner drive.

I had to disconnect my primary slave cd
drive to get a power supply for the ST-225.

After boot-up on Win98SE, all comes up (as normal) except the ST-225.

That card does have a bios. Can you see any
evidence of the bios being executed at boot time ?

It should put some text on the black bios screen at boot time.

That card can be jumpered for XT and AT mode.

Probably best to jumper it with the bios enabled,
with the drive set to the 20MB drive and see if it
will come up as an extra drive.

If that doesnt work, try jumpering it for AT mode
and put the CHS values for the ST225 in the first
drive type entry in the motherboard bios and
disconnect the other drives and see if you can
see the drive when booted from a bootable floppy.

If you can, put the ST225 on the second hard drive
position on the WD1002A-WX1, put the normal boot
drive back in the system, put the first drive type entry
back to AUTO, put the ST225 drive CHS in the second
drive entry and you may well be able to see the drive
when booted off your main boot drive.

 

[ZVladimir]

Thanks for the info, I got the schematic from the link you posted and that
helps with the controller.
Still, however, I can't get it to show up at boot up. There are still some
other jumper settings on the controller I'd like to try before I give up.
Thanks again.

 

[ZVladimir]

Ok, I'll see if this will work. Thanks.

Start by disabling the Primary IDE channel in BIOS - Integrated. You will be
able to manually add vanilla IDE with Add New HW, which might work.

 

[Eric Gisin]

Sorry, it won't. the IDE driver only works with 16-bit PC/AT controllers.

There will not be a conflict with your card and the primary channel.

 

[Guest]

I have a friend's old '90-92 Seagate ST-225, 20MB hard drive and
want to connect it my pc only long enough to access and save the
files that are on it.

This hard drive came with a controller (expansion card) that I
inserted in one of my ISA slots.

I would like to know how to configure my pc ( and if necessary
to configure the hard drive or its controller card) to be able
to access this hard drive.

Try www.blue-planet.com and www.hardwarehell.com for information about
old hardware.

You should first try to get the ST-225 to work by itself because
there's there's no point in trying to make it and the IDE drives to
work together otherwise. Your motherboard probably has 2 IDE
connectors. Disable both in the BIOS setup, such as by choosing
"NONE" or "TYPE 0" for all 4 drives. The ST-225 needs a terminator
resistor pack installed on the bottom of its circuit board. It's a
narrow package, usually yellow, green, or black, with about 10 pins in
a single row. If the drive is inaccessible, even when you first boot
to a floppy (may need DOS 6.22 or older), it may have incorrect jumper
settings, or its BIOS chip may not be compatible with the
motherboard's BIOS. The most-compatible HD BIOS chip for 8-bit
Western Digital controllers is Super BIOS, but jumper settings can
vary by BIOS, and apparently so can the low level format, meaning if
you switch the BIOS you may not be able to read the drive any more.

Assuming that the ST-225 can be accessed and you want to directly copy
its data to an IDE drive, you'll have to set up one HD controller as
the primary and the other as the secondary because otherwise the
BIOSes will be confused (this is not a problem with hardware I/O port
conflicts, regardless of settings). I don't remember whether the
8-bit MFM controller has to be the primary, but you may want to first
try it this way and enable just one IDE drive in BIOS. If you can't
get the MFM and IDE drives to work together, try disabling that IDE
drive and enabling another until you run out of IDE drives.

It's possible that your computer is too fast for the MFM BIOS and you
may need to disable the L2 cache in your BIOS setup. This can make
Windows to run at a snail's pace, but DOS will be OK. On older
motherboards you can enable or disable ROM shadowing in the BIOS
setup, but 8-bit MFM and RLL cards don't seem to have problems with
shadowing, unlike most 16-bit cards.