Winchester SA1004 file recovering

Enrico email.it enrico.lazzerini at email.it
Wed Feb 3 03:43:48 CST 2021


Hello everyone,
in Italy in 1981 there was an explosion in creating new machines following
the introduction of microprocessors. 

I have several "General Processor T-Model" machines that used CP / M 2.2
operating system. 
Here you can see the photos of the 1st acquisition
https://www.vintagesbc.it/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Foto3775.jpg (this is a
master machine with modified CP/M system that provides shared resources via
rs232 to two slave machines) and the 2nd acquisition
https://www.vintagesbc.it/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Foto3430.jpg (these are
two compositions: a machine with CP/M system with a pair of BASF 6104 drives
and a second machine with an HD + FD 8" box and a further box with a pair of
REMEX RFD4000 8" drives). 
The machines of the second acquisition were in a better condition. 

A very dear friend first read in raw mode a 10MB Winchester hard disk model
Shugard SA1004 from which the files were correctly extracted and then set up
a test bench from which you can see in this video the complete system
operating with the HD ed il controller Shugart SASI SA1403:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/d9iacfgrnexso3o/GP%20T20%20con%20HD%20banco%20prov
a.mp4?dl=0

The problem arose later when we tried to extract the raw file from the 10MB
Winchester hard disk model Shugard SA1004 of the 1st acquisition in the same
way. Visually, the hard disk had certainly suffered atmospheric damage, but
the electronic boards were functioning correctly. 

Despite we having attempted different readings (even using cards from the
first hard disk), using the same FLUXengine card
(http://cowlark.com/fluxengine/doc/building.html) the raw file still does
not present the Hard Disk directory, instead  we read the information of the
files present but there may be bad bytes in these files and in the rest of
the disk as well. 

Unfortunately this content is unique in its kind and we would like at least
to extract the operating system and/or the files of its initialization in
order to be able to correctly reproduce the functioning of this system. 

The last option would be to take the hard drive to a clean room hoping that
the hard drive platters are not scratched.

Any suggestion?

Enrico - Pisa (ITALY)



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