Re: 5.25in DD disks, reading in DD drive after writing in HD drive?

Posted on 2015-10-14, 17:37

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by torindkflt

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Indeed, I did move the magnet fairly quickly, but slowly rotated the disk in increments so there was some overlap to make sure the entire disk was evenly erased. I did learn that I have to repeat this process every time I want to change files on the disk, so it is kinda tedious for copying a lot of …

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Re: 5.25in DD disks, reading in DD drive after writing in HD drive?

Posted on 2015-10-14, 02:48

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by torindkflt

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I don't have access to a degaussing wand...would a strong neodymium magnet work? :lol: Update: Actually, it DID work! I ran a neodymium magnet over the disk radially outward from the center, making sure to slowly work around the disk. Then I formatted it in the high-density drive, copied some files …

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5.25in DD disks, reading in DD drive after writing in HD drive?

Posted on 2015-10-14, 02:16

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by torindkflt

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I have two vintage PCs with 5.25in floppy drives. One of them has two double-density drives, and the other has one high-density drive. The system with a high-density drive also has a 3.5in floppy drive, so I would like to use it as an intermediary to copy files onto the system with the double- …

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Re: zip drive click of death

Posted on 2015-10-13, 13:53

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by torindkflt

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Granted I've never been a heavy Zip drive user, but I've never had trouble with any of the ones I've used, which includes several internal IDE, an external USB and external parallel. I recently got an external SCSI Zip 100, but I do not yet have any computers to which I can connect it to try it.

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Re: MFM hard drives

Posted on 2015-10-12, 06:07

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by torindkflt

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I don't know about actual drives, but I have a WD MFM/RLL controller card dated May 1990.

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Re: Help Identifying 486 VLB+PCI Motherboard

Posted on 2015-10-10, 20:02

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by torindkflt

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Looks like it's a Green GXA486SPM. The diagram on page 4 of this PDF matches the layout of your board. http://www.elhvb.com/mobokive/archive/epox/ma … uals/486spm.pdf

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Re: CD burning on pre-Pentium systems?

Posted on 2015-10-10, 16:09

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by torindkflt

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I have one of those external Backpack CD burners that connects through either USB or parallel port. I've never tried it before so I don't know if it works, nor do I have the drivers to set it up in parallel mode. Even then, I doubt I'd be able to find DOS-based CD burning software that supported it, …

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2015-10-08, 14:58

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by torindkflt

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Does reformatting an MFM drive as RLL change the number of cylinders? I thought doing so only changed the number of sectors per cylinder. I ask because FDISK 3.3 reports 939 cylinders, even after low-level formatting (It never asked me for the CHS parameters, so I presume it just reused the old …

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Re: Rare CPUs

Posted on 2015-10-08, 00:48

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by torindkflt

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I'm not knowledgeable enough on the series to know their relative rarity compared to other same-era processors, but according to my observations, the least common CPU I have in my collection is a Cyrix MediaGX 180MHz. I actually have two of them, one in a working system and one from a dead system. …

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2015-10-08, 00:34

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by torindkflt

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Found a WD FileCard 30 for a good price on eBay, I'm gonna use it in my AT&T PC 6300 to replace the Seagate I used to have in there (which unfortunately self-destructed). This'll also allow me to put the second floppy drive back in the system since it doesn't use a bay. IMG_20151007_191600518.jpg …

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Re: Slowest 386 practicaly usable with Windows 95 Chicago 4.00.950?

Posted on 2015-10-07, 16:36

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by torindkflt

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Here's a video on YouTube of someone supposedly running Win95 on a Toshiba T5200 with 100MB hard drive, which AFAIK only has a 20MHz 386. I say "supposedly" because the person recording the video doesn't move the mouse or interact with anything on the screen while recording, so for all we know it …

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Re: What retro activity did you get up to today?

Posted on 2015-10-03, 04:32

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by torindkflt

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Lamented over the sudden death of the Seagate ST-250R from my AT&T PC 6300. One of the heads snapped off. 😵 Filename IMG_20151002_231933338.jpg File size 1.34 MiB Views 2878 views

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Re: 'Obscure' 386SX Litebook 3000 laptop

Posted on 2015-09-26, 16:38

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by torindkflt

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I should correct myself and say it's typically the voltage inverter that powers the backlight which could have failed, and not the backlight itself. I have replaced the inverter on a few modern laptops, it's typically not a difficult task and I would assume (but cannot guarantee) an older laptop …

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Re: What retro activity did you get up to today?

Posted on 2015-09-26, 04:01

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by torindkflt

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Finally got around to properly testing the Laser 128 I got several months ago at Goodwill. It works perfectly, but the joystick is a little fidgety. IMG_20150925_225026224.jpg On a side note, I learned that my 32in HDTV does not like having any Apple II or clone connected to it, it just shows a …

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Re: 'Obscure' 386SX Litebook 3000 laptop

Posted on 2015-09-26, 00:01

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by torindkflt

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

One possibility is that the backlight in the screen has failed, but the LCD panel itself is fine. Try viewing the screen under very bright light, or shine a flashlight at an angle from the side to see if anything is visible on the screen. If so, then replacing the backlight should be all that needs …

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Re: Duplicate Hardware in Your Collection

Posted on 2015-09-24, 16:43

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by torindkflt

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

The only duplicate I have in my collection is a couple Toshiba T3100SX portable computers. They're identical copies of each other in every way, including the unfortunate fact that neither of them work because they both have the exact same problem and are beyond my knowledge and skills for repair. : …

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Re: Stiction: any long term remedies/prevention?

Posted on 2015-09-20, 16:57

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by torindkflt

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Did some brief research, and your right, it definitely does appear to be a breakdown of the lubricant coating on the platters that ultimately causes stiction. I would be extremely hesitant to do anything directly to the platters themselves though, so I may just have to call this drive a loss. 😵

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Re: Stiction: any long term remedies/prevention?

Posted on 2015-09-19, 07:47

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by torindkflt

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

The drive won't spin up. It's not a lubrication issue with the spindle motor, the read/write heads are physically stuck to the platters. I don't know the technical details behind what ultimately causes this to occur, just that it's a very common problem with old drives from the 80s-early 90s that …

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Re: What retro activity did you get up to today?

Posted on 2015-09-19, 06:46

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by torindkflt

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Just for shiggles, I edited the registry on the only working WinXP machine I currently have (Fujitsu Stylistic LT C-500 tablet) so it'll download and install updates for the Embedded/POS version of XP. :lol: IMG_20150919_013344753_HDR.jpg I did it mostly for curiosity, I have no intentions …

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Stiction: any long term remedies/prevention?

Posted on 2015-09-19, 04:22

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by torindkflt

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I know that regularly powering up vintage computers can help preserve them, especially when it comes to the mechanical aspects like hard drives. This is the most commonly cited means of preventing the dreaded "stiction" problem. Unfortunately, I have a Seagate ST-250R (Identical mechanism to the ST- …

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