Can you swap the logic board on an ESDI Hard drive? \ VOGONS

Can you swap the logic board on an ESDI Hard drive?

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First post, by SteveC

Posted on 2021-09-01, 16:58

SteveC Offline

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Hi all,

I just picked up a 60mb ESDI drive off eBay that gives an error on boot, but it 'sounds' perfect mechanically (I replaced the front three capacitors as they had obviously leaked to no avail). I have another drive but it's 120MB that's full of bad sectors and getting worse. Can I try swapping the boards to get one good drive?

Cheers,
Steve

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Reply 1 of 5, by pentiumspeed

Posted on 2021-09-01, 17:34

pentiumspeed Offline

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Yes. If same model series.

What are these two models and pictures will help.

Cheers,

Great Northern aka Canada.

Reply 2 of 5, by pentiumspeed

Posted on 2021-09-01, 17:34

pentiumspeed Offline

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Location: Great Northern: Canada.

Yes. If same model series.

What are these two models? And some pictures will help.

Cheers,

Great Northern aka Canada.

Reply 3 of 5, by SteveC

Posted on 2021-09-01, 17:56

SteveC Offline

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Ha OK I tried it and I think the answer is no. I put the known good board from the 120MB onto the 60MB drive and powered it up and it sounded like a bag of nails, heads clonking and all sorts.
Put them back as they were and the 120mb still works and the 60mb sounds good again but same error.

It's these drives

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Reply 4 of 5, by pentiumspeed

Posted on 2021-09-01, 18:21

pentiumspeed Offline

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Location: Great Northern: Canada.

This is *not* ESDI drive. This is for PS/2 only of few models that uses this interface. Interfaces directly with MCA bus and need to move a firmware IC and board must be *exact* same look, parts on the board exactly same etc.

Reason I was *thinking* ahh ESDI old drives for example imaginary models: ED5060 and ED5120 model etc, sure change boards because set up is done on the ESDI controller card and computer's bios.
But this PS/2 drives is done via onboard micro controller and is more smarter, and has firmware for specific type of hard drive type. ESDI is more dumb.

ESDI drives uses 3 connections similar to MFM/RLL also using 3 connections (control, data and power).

Cheers,

Great Northern aka Canada.

Reply 5 of 5, by SteveC

Posted on 2021-09-01, 18:29

SteveC Offline

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Fair enough 😀

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