25 Jul
2001
25 Jul
'01
8:09 a.m.
--- "Daniel A. Segel" <Daniel.Segel(a)wcom.com> wrote:
Here's the deal:
I have a circa 1982 IBM PC that has a Seagate ST-251 in it attached to a Data
Technology Corp. DTC-5150CI controller with a BIOS on it.
A very standard controller for the day. I had one on my Amiga via "The Wedge".
The problem is that I want to pull the files off of
this drive, and the 360K
floppy doesn't appeal to me a method of transfer (the hard drive is almost
full.)
Ugh. Lotsa swaps.
There are three ways I can imagine doing this:
1. Get an 8-bit ethernet card working under DOS 3.3 and somehow connect it to
my home network,
MS-DOS Kermit supports an interface to a packet driver. I have my Commodore
Colt (PC-XT) attached to the network this way. I load the packet driver, then
fire off Kermit. Instead of "set port com1" or some such, it's "set
ip...".
Once you have all the parameters set (I have a Kermit batch file), it's just
like using it over a serial port - "C" to connect, "<CTRL-\>C"
to get back
to the prompt, etc. I usually kermit to my SPARC server, login in, run Kermit
there, then move files.
I backed up a PS/2 Model 30 with a 50Mb RLL drive on an ISA controller this
way.
Unless you have some sort of machine running a telnet daemon that you can
run Kermit over, there's nothing to catch your session on the other end.
If all you have are M$ boxes, I wouldn't recommend this solution.
2. Install a second HD in the PC that's running
off a more modern controller
(IDE?),
You would need to set the modern controller to a non-conflicting address. An
8-bit SCSI card might do the trick.
3. Install the ST-251 into a more modern PC.
Could be tricky, especially depending on what else is in there.
I've been trying to get option 3 to work for a
week now, but I'm not having
any luck. Any tips? I'm currently trying to get the DTC controller to work in
an old EISA 486 with a 1992 AMI BIOS, but I keep getting a "HDD Controller
failure" message. I've tried it both with the controllers BIOS enabled and
disabled. If the BIOS is enabled, it puts up a message saying "1 hard disk"
right before the other error - this is the same message I see on the PC right
before it starts booting.
So I know the controller itself is "working", but it's not being
recognized
by the BIOS. I'm not sure what's going on.
I don't know how well modern machines work with 8-bit disk controllers. I'd
be concerned about IRQ/DMA conflicts. Additionally, I'd not try it in an EISA
machine because I wouldn't want to mess with the config files.
Any tips? Any other ideas about how to get the data
off of this drive? Should
I try another MFM controller?
You should leave that drive on the DTC-5150. It's formatted for it. The trick
is to either get it working in a new box or get something else working in
the box with it, or...
Two other ways to do it - 1) use Kermit on the serial port. Sure, 40Mb will
take a while to squirt out of an 8250 serial chip (don't try rates much
over 19.2kbps), but all the equipment is there. 2) Locate a high-density
8-bit floppy controller and use 1.44Mb disks. I have one - it has its own
BIOS to handle the differences. They would be difficult to locate now, so
unless you already have one, it's probably not a good solution.
-ethan
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