11 Feb
2009
11 Feb
'09
9:27 a.m.
--- On Wed, 2/11/09, John Floren <slawmaster at gmail.com> wrote:
A kind list member in my area has offered me a Nicolet
660
computer
free if I can haul it off, so I'm hoping to see if
anyone else has any
information about it.
Hmm. Yeah, I've never heard of Nicolet either. Interesting find!
The Nicolet is a hip-high (3'?) cabinet that acts
like
a mini rack
(units slide in and out on rails). The disk unit sits on
top and has
two SCSI 3.5" floppy drives and an SMD hard disk.
Apparently the hard drive has died. Is it easy to get
replacement SMD
disks, or are there adapters that would let me plug in a
SCSI drive or
something more common? This seems to be a very unique piece
of
equipment that I would like to try to get working.
I don't know of any available adapters, but SMD drives shouldn't be too hard to
find. What type of drives is in there currently? What's the form factor? SMD drives
exist in many sizes and types, and you need to find one that's compatible. Most SMD
drives use 8" or 9" platters, although 5 1/4" drives were made, they're
pretty rare. 14" platter drives were also common.
Ideally, you'd want to find another drive of the same type as the dead one. SMD
controllers need to know all the specs of a drive, it's not automatic like SCSI, so
you need to find a drive that's compatible.
If it's something like a Seagate/CDC Sabre, then it shouldn't be hard at all to
find another one.
What's wrong with the drive? SMD drives are repairable, provided the HDA (head disk
assembly) has not crashed. Many SMD drives contain their own power supply - it may have
failed. I've repaired several drives that didn't work, but the disk mechanism
itself was fine.
-Ian