All things ESDI

I'd be most grateful for a little advice from this list please. I'm finally getting my shed into order with my X'teen dozen computers etc. During the clean and tidy up process I came across a couple of old drives I grabbed a while go. These are both ESDI drives. For your info they re: * a Maxtor XT-8380E * a MiniScribe 9380E At the size of house brick I have to admire the engineering, particularly the Maxtor. You pick it up and you can feel the quality metaphorically speaking. I did some Googling on these drives last night and I found plenty about geometry but little else. It seems ESDI fitted somewhere between MFM/RLL and IDE all be it a very brief appearance but certainly the rationale for introducing the ESDI drives at the time was impressive for those times. The connectors on the ESDI drive appear to be the same as MFM so I am assuming that I can use MFM cables. I want to see if these drives are still operational but at this stage I don't have an ESDI controler. I do have a PS/2 Model 80 which I believe uses an ESDI controller but I'm not too sure about that or if this might even work. I could just power the drives up to see if they spin (which doesn't necessarily mean they work but it is a start). My only concern is that I could not ascertain if these types of drives require the heads to be parked before spinning down so I'm reluctant to do this at this stage. What little info I could find apart from geometry suggested that the only comtroller for these was an Adaptec ESDI Controller Card (possibly the ACB-2322D or ACB-2322 http://www.adaptec.com/worldwide/support/suppdetail.jsp?sess=no&language =English+US&prodkey=ACB-2322B )but again its not abundantly clear. I am also assuming that if I slot an ESDI controller into a motherboard that the motherboard will recognise it as a hard disk controller without doing much else. Any clues greatly appreciated!!!! ++++++++++ Kevin Parker Web Services Consultant WorkCover Corporation p: 08 8233 2548 m: 0418 806 166 e: kparker at workcover.com w: www.workcover.com ++++++++++ ************************************************************************ This e-mail is intended for the use of the addressee only. It may contain information that is protected by legislated confidentiality and/or is legally privileged. If you are not the intended recipient you are prohibited from disseminating, distributing or copying this e-mail. Any opinion expressed in this e-mail may not necessarily be that of the WorkCover Corporation of South Australia. Although precautions have been taken, the sender cannot warrant that this e-mail or any files transmitted with it are free of viruses or any other defect. If you have received this e-mail in error, please notify the sender immediately by return e-mail and destroy the original e-mail and any copies. ************************************************************************