Microsolutions Backpack HDD drive replacement \ VOGONS

Microsolutions Backpack HDD drive replacement

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First post, by Cbb

Posted on 2024-11-16, 10:08

Cbb Offline

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Hi there!
Recently I've got a Microsolutions Backpack parallel port hard drive. It's capacity is 203 Mb only. Inside the box there's a regular Conner CFS210A IDE drive.
At first I tried to connect it to PC directly to backup files from it and successfully did that.
But, when I tried to make a sector-by-sector image of the whole drive by Norton Disk Editor, I've got ”sector not found” errors so I suppose that the BIOS autodetectection configuration is not the same that backpack driver do.
Also when I tried to put another (WD 540 Mb) drive into enclosure, the backpack driver refused to load, claiming that the drive is not found, but controller is ok.
So the questions are
1. how to get the correct drive config to put into BIOS?
2. how to adapt a regular HDD to work in the enclosure?

Reply 1 of 4, by Horun

Posted on 2024-11-16, 17:30

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Hmm maybe the driver is designed only for Conner drives ? I see on the archives they had models (below 1GB) of
152210 Backpack 210MB Hard Drive serial # prefix 222
152420 Backpack 420MB Hard Drive # 224
152850 Backpack 850MB Hard Drive # 285
With Para port should not need BIOS info entered if it works like Para Zip drive

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Reply 2 of 4, by Cbb

Posted on 2024-11-17, 06:37

Cbb Offline

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Horun wrote on 2024-11-16, 17:30:

With Para port should not need BIOS info entered if it works like Para Zip drive

I'd like to know the driver reported geometry in order to connect the drive to IDE interface to make the binary image.
I believe there's some data in one of the first sectors that the driver reads and configures the drive.

Reply 3 of 4, by weedeewee

Posted on 2024-11-17, 10:20

weedeewee Offline

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Cbb wrote on 2024-11-17, 06:37:

Horun wrote on 2024-11-16, 17:30:

With Para port should not need BIOS info entered if it works like Para Zip drive

I'd like to know the driver reported geometry in order to connect the drive to IDE interface to make the binary image.
I believe there's some data in one of the first sectors that the driver reads and configures the drive.

That should be pretty easy.
Just look at the partition table and take into account which one starts from 0 and which one starts from 1.

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Reply 4 of 4, by Cbb

Posted on 2024-11-19, 09:01

Cbb Offline

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Managed to make a full sector-by-sector image by Norton's diskeditor.
will try to put the image to another drive (higher capacity) to get what driver say upon loading

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