Subject: Compaq Deskpro 286

From: "Bella Oxmyx" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue Jun 10 10:37:34 2003

Does anybody have a listing of translations for the drive types for a Compaq
Deskpro 286?  (i.e. type , cylinders, heads, sectors)  I have couple of hard
drives I'd like to add, but can't tell what drive type to select.  The setup
disk doesn't have a user definable type.

Jack

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From: "G Manuel" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue Jun 10 11:30:01 2003

Check out this link. It gives jumper settings for all kinds of stuff as well
as hard drive configuration settings (cylinders/heads/sectors etc.) bye
manufacturer and model.

http://th99.pley.org/

Greg

-----Original Message-----
From: [email-masked] [mailto:[email-masked]]On
Behalf Of Bella Oxmyx
Sent: Wednesday, June 11, 2003 1:40 AM
To: [email-masked]
Subject: Compaq Deskpro 286

Jack

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From: Tothwolf <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue Jun 10 15:04:01 2003

On Wed, 11 Jun 2003, Bella Oxmyx wrote:

> Does anybody have a listing of translations for the drive types for a
> Compaq Deskpro 286?  (i.e. type , cylinders, heads, sectors)  I have
> couple of hard drives I'd like to add, but can't tell what drive type to
> select.  The setup disk doesn't have a user definable type.

Sometimes you can get these systems to work with a drive with a geometry
similar to one of the settings. Of course, you will usually lose a little
of the drive's capacity. For the most part, is it extremely difficult, if
not impossible, to install a high capacity drive in these systems due to
the lack of a user definable type. I think at one time there may have been
some aftermarket BIOS implementations available for the older Compaq
systems that added such support, but I've not yet come across one. Another
option would be to use a 3rd party HD controller that has its own BIOS.

-Toth

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From: Mike Ford <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu Jun 12 13:44:00 2003

Can the 2.88 floppys used on alphaservers work on a PC?

such as
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2735659907&category=162&rd=1

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From: "Fred Cisin (XenoSoft)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu Jun 12 14:07:20 2003

> http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2735659907&category=162&rd=1

For direct "normal" connection, you need a "non-standard" disk controller
that supports a 1000K bits per second data transfer rate.  There have been
some, and some PS/2's (IBM, NOT "Play Station"!) included support.
But those controllers are not very common.

Alternatively, MicroSolutions made a "Backpack" parallel port external
2.8M drive.   I used one for many years.

I suppose that you COULD modify a 2.8M for 150RPM, ...

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From: Joe <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu Jun 12 15:35:13 2003

>http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2735659907&category=162&
rd=1

  I don't know about THAT particular 2.88 drive but some PCs support 2.88
drives. Somewhere I have a couple of add-in FD controllers that have their
own BIOS and they support the 2.88. And I've seen a 2.88 setting on a
couple of motherboard BIOSs.

   I think that it would be hard to find disks for the 2.88 unless you want
to buy them new. The disks are marked ED or EHD IIRC. I've been looking for
them in the surplus/scrap places but only found ONE in 2 years.

     Joe

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From: David Woyciesjes <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu Jun 12 15:56:01 2003

> them in the surplus/scrap places but only found ONE in 2 years.

	Not exactly related, but I did manage to get my hands on a ThinkPad 755
with a 2.88 floppy in it...

--
---   Dave Woyciesjes
---   ICQ# 905818

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From: "Fred Cisin (XenoSoft)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu Jun 12 15:56:13 2003

> them in the surplus/scrap places but only found ONE in 2 years.

They're not easy to find, but they do turn up occasionally.
IBM used them, and Next used them (they called them "4M" (unformatted
capacity))

IIRC, they are Barium Ferrite.
They look like a 1.4M, but the media ID hole is in a slightly different
place.

When used with a PC, they are 2 sided * 80 tracks per side * 36 sectors
per track * 512 Bytes per sector.
That works out to 2.8125 "honest" megabytes ("MebiByte") (1048576)
Unless you use IBM's ridiculous 1,024,000 bytes per megabyte.