28 May
2006
28 May
'06
1:51 p.m.
So (to get it
on-topic for classiccmp), people with machines that
only support IDE drives are going to have problems in the future
finding working replacements (I doubt very much if any of us could
repair any reasonably-modern IDE drive, alas). I've seen adapters to
use IDE drives on SATA hosts, but not the reverse.
FWIW, all of the failures I've seen in an IDE drive were failures in the
HDA, not in the electronics. "Boardswapping" a new board onto most IDE
drives is trivial if you have a couple spares of the
same drive, if
there's really a problem with the electronics. I know that may not
But as you said, the electroncis is rarely the problem.
One caveat in doing this is that I beleive some drives stored HDA
parameters (bad block lists, etc) in non-volatile memory on the logic
board. Swapping boards between seemingly identical drives won't always work.
appeal to you, Tony, but most of us don't have the
ability or spare
time to repair surface mount electronics... :)
Having looked at some IDE drives I am not sure I do either. Very fine
pitch connections (tht I probably could solder if I had to) and nasty
ASICs that I can't get and don't understand. I would attempt to replace
standard components if I could prove that was the problem.
Anyhow, there's enough new products being designed with IDE hard drives
in them, that IDE will still be around for at least 5 years if not
much, much more...
5 years is not that long.
-tony