Uncreative Labs

Joined: 06 Sep 2015 Posts: 2

Hi folks, I want to hook up a MiniScribe 43 MB hard disk to my 5150. I am 16 and don't have much experience with a IBM XT PC. Help Please? I have a old ISA controller card for the IBM PC.

AJ

Posted: Mon Sep 07, 2015 8:38 pm

Glad to help. What controller card do you have?

Joined: 06 Sep 2015 Posts: 2

I think it is a Seegate standard, not sure on model... I don't see one listed.

Also, I have A Espon Equity II+ (286) with factory controller. It says when i want to use Hard disk type 40 in the bios (booted from floppy disk) it says that the disk HHD1 is reserved and can not be saved. I have no other hard drives installed. What should i do?

Posted: Fri Sep 18, 2015 5:34 am

43MB is right about the point where they switched to IDE. Is your drive MFM/RLL or IDE? (IDE has a single 40-pin cable, MFM has two cables.)

The basic process for installing a MFM/RLL hard drive in many of these older systems is:
1. Install the disk and controller and cables
2. Inform the system of the new disk (via BIOS or jumpers)
3. Boot off a system disk
4. Low-level format the drive. DEBUG G=c800:5 is pretty common (https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/60089)
5. Format the drive using DOS format
6. Install the OS.

http://www.epson.com/cgi-bin/Store/support/supDetail.jsp?UseCookie=yes&infoType=Doc&oid=14209

I was able to find the Epson Equity II+ manual on Epson's site of all places. It's even been nicely converted to PDF and not just a series of scanned images. Cool!

Looks like several of the hard disk types were not implemented. Do you have the option to enter the hard disk specs manually? (Usually that's type 47.)

Joined: 20 Nov 2004 Posts: 589 Location: Shandong, China

Is your drive 3.5" or 5.25"? Installing a 5.25" HDD in a 5150 is normally considered a bad idea, because the original power supply was only 63.5Watts and wasn't up to the job. I think sometimes you could get away with a half-height 5.25", but considering the power supply is all crusty and old, pushing it to the limits is probably a bad idea.

Also, you should be aware that older MFM and RLL controllers are often times designed to only work with a couple of drive types. The original IBM controllers in the XT only supported a single drive (10 or 20MB) as far as I recall. In my experience, most of the third party MFM controllers were only good for 20MB capacities and the RLLs were mostly good for 30MB. The only flexible controllers I ever owned were some late models from Western Digital.

Maybe software overlays can get around the problem? I've never really looked into it.

At this point, I think you are way better off investing in an XTIDE controller, and a compact flash card. That's the route I have taken in my 5150. In this way, you can also preserve the look of the machine by keeping the dual 5.25" full height floppies.