Reading ESDI disks

[Al Kossow]

On 2/11/21 12:31 PM, Mattis Lind via cctalk wrote:

> But then I thought, perhaps this is a more generic problem. People having
> ESDI drives (well, SMD as well I guess) that there is no controller
> available for or could be made running due to drivers or whatever. So what
> if those drives could be read anyway.
> 
> Interfacewise it shouldn't be that complex. One benefit of ESDI is that the
> clock extraction has already been done, so it is mostly a question on
> finding marks calculating CRC.
> 
> /Mattis
> 

I have a bunch of RT drives that I need to archive, and I have the same problem.

It should be possible to disable write gate and use a generic PC ESDI controller
to position the heads, then extract the data with a logic analyzer or something
else capable of running at that data rate. If you look at the spec, there is a byte
strobe along with the clock and data.