I’ve only restored the Xtra XT and XP models myself, but try CTRL-ALT-ESC. That brings up the built-in diag screens for the ITT Xtra XP 286 6MHz model. No idea if that will work for your XL model. You can find a bit here. The “later set” system disks might have some ITT specific files that could be helpful.

The MFM HDD controller card will most likely need its own config files or debug command to access the HDD settings. You’ll have to identify the controller card model and hunt for info on that. It’s been awhile since I setup my last MFM drive.

I will tell you the ITT Xtra systems were built like tanks. Very nice systems in their day.

liqmat wrote on 2025-12-02, 07:28:

I’ve only restored the Xtra XT and XP models myself, but try CTRL-ALT-ESC. That brings up the built-in diag screens for the ITT Xtra XP 286 6MHz model. No idea if that will work for your XL model. You can find a bit here. The “later set” system disks might have some ITT specific files that could be helpful.

The MFM HDD controller card will most likely need its own config files or debug command to access the HDD settings. You’ll have to identify the controller card model and hunt for info on that. It’s been awhile since I setup my last MFM drive.

I will tell you the ITT Xtra systems were built like tanks. Very nice systems in their day.

Thanks, I will give that a go.
I saw a thread somewhere where someone was asking about getting a disk image for one of these.
Im still deciding whether or not I keep the thing, but your right, its built like a tank and weighs a ton. Still trying to work out how the drives fit in here, its quite tight, I probably can remove one of these disks and find some other drives to fill the front 5.25 bays, Im thinking I could put a single bay HDD in the front, and then 2 floppy drives or something.

I have not had alot to do with MFM drives, but ive fired up an old controller that had its disk installed and the thing loaded up fine.
Im not sure if the BIOS is the issue, or the disk itself.
The message "hard disk #1 ready" would indicate to me that the controller has found the disk, but it is not trying to attempt to boot from it yet. If I can get into DOS and run debug, I should be able to access the controller, it appears its a western digital controller, but need to take a closer look at it.

Big question here is what games would suit this, its only got 2MB of RAM, but could suit alot of side scrolling era games. If its possible to expand the RAM with an expansion card, I might look at doing that.

Looked up my old VCFED post and it’s CTRL-ALT-ESC and then at the prompt you type “h” and the diag screen should appear. Once again, that’s for the XP model so it may not work on the XL.

Also, someone posted recently on their Xtra and decided to move on from their MFM drive.

As far as games, good 286 class games would be anything in the 1980s essentially. Point and click adventure games like the King’s Quest series, most EGA games and many of the XT CGA games work fine on 286 systems. I’m not sure about the XL model, but on the XP model you could toggle the system between 286 and XT speeds with CTRL-ALT-\.

liqmat wrote on 2025-12-02, 08:48:

Looked up my old VCFED post and it’s CTRL-ALT-ESC and then at the prompt you type “h” and the diag screen should appear. Once again, that’s for the XP model so it may not work on the XL.

Also, someone posted recently on their Xtra and decided to move on from their MFM drive.

As far as games, good 286 class games would be anything in the 1980s essentially. Point and click adventure games like the King’s Quest series, most EGA games and many of the XT CGA games work fine on 286 systems. I’m not sure about the XL model, but on the XP model you could toggle the system between 286 and XT speeds with CTRL-ALT-\.

Yes I have just tried ctrl-alt-esc and it works.
I found that the setup menu was also able to provide me the disk information, so looks like the BIOS can communicate with the HDD controller card, it appears its the original card, but im not 100% sure.
According to the setup, only one drive is showing, but the second drive might not be configured properly.
Either way, its having trouble reading from the disk.
It looks like its got the FDD controller on the same card too, as it has a spare port on it with the ribbon cable present with the twist.
I haven't figured out how to write the changes to the CMOS yet, but doesn't appear to save any settings I have changed such as floppy drive types, etc. The battery is dead, but I can reboot while still powered on and its not saved.

Another downside is the BIOS does not support 1.44mb 3.5 inch floppy drives, I can use 1.2MB 5.25 inch drives however.
I probably will have to add a later controller card which i think ive got.

nzoomed wrote on 2025-12-02, 09:47:

The battery is dead, but I can reboot while still powered on and its not saved.

Another downside is the BIOS does not support 1.44mb 3.5 inch floppy drives, I can use 1.2MB 5.25 inch drives however.
I probably will have to add a later controller card which i think ive got.

I have come across older systems that will not hold their settings even on a warm reset if the battery is dead. So you may have to replace the battery first. Also, makes sense on the floppy support.

Edit: Oh, and I see that system is fancy pants with an 80287 coprocessor installed. Nice.

liqmat wrote on 2025-12-02, 10:05:

nzoomed wrote on 2025-12-02, 09:47:

The battery is dead, but I can reboot while still powered on and its not saved.

Another downside is the BIOS does not support 1.44mb 3.5 inch floppy drives, I can use 1.2MB 5.25 inch drives however.
I probably will have to add a later controller card which i think ive got.

I have come across older systems that will not hold their settings even on a warm reset if the battery is dead. So you may have to replace the battery first. Also, makes sense on the floppy support.

Edit: Oh, and I see that system is fancy pants with an 80287 coprocessor installed. Nice.

Yes i noticed that. Should be a nice addition.
I see no option to write changes on exit, so I assume its supposed to write automatically after you make a change?
Will these be a 3.7V battery?
I'm interested to see if i can get these MFM drives working, i know they are probably unreliable at this age however. I think 2 of them are an overkill and I can make use of the extra space.
Its always interesting to see whats on the system too, I believe it was used for CAD design, so will have been high specin its day.

Here's an older post of mine when I was getting a Seagate ST-251 MFM HDD up and running. Used the phenomenal SpeedStor util which you can find here. Don't underestimate the power of an MFM HDD. That Seagate ST-251 sat idle for 30(ish) years before I got my hands on it and it powered right up with zero issues and the bad sector map was stable. If you want to save the data on there, well, that's a whole different story. I usually go in like a rabid racoon and low level format an elderly drive like that as that will usually reveal any problems before I get deeper into it.

Edit: Also, if you download that ITT disk archive labeled "later set" (3.20B) that I linked to above you'll find a quick reference card PDF I scanned in which shows you various DOS commands and key combos that are ITT specific. May or may not be helpful, just FYI.

liqmat wrote on 2025-12-02, 14:28:

Here's an older post of mine when I was getting a Seagate ST-251 MFM HDD up and running. Used the phenomenal SpeedStor util which you can find here. Don't underestimate the power of an MFM HDD. That Seagate ST-251 sat idle for 30(ish) years before I got my hands on it and it powered right up with zero issues and the bad sector map was stable. If you want to save the data on there, well, that's a whole different story. I usually go in like a rabid racoon and low level format an elderly drive like that as that will usually reveal any problems before I get deeper into it.

Edit: Also, if you download that ITT disk archive labeled "later set" (3.20B) that I linked to above you'll find a quick reference card PDF I scanned in which shows you various DOS commands and key combos that are ITT specific. May or may not be helpful, just FYI.

Thanks, that should be helpful, looks like there is a good chance that disk set will work. Is there much difference between the XP and XL systems? Going by photos my unit is much bigger.
Looks like I will have to stick with the ITT DOS package to get their custom features enabled, is there much point installing a newer version of MS-DOS on a system this age?
Ive got another machine here with an MFM drive and its loading first pop when i switched it on, still loads DOS and has all its software running on it from the company it belonged to, they certianly seem reliable.
I just need to get these disk images onto a 5.25 inch floppy now and I should be sorted.

nzoomed wrote on 2025-12-02, 21:06:

Thanks, that should be helpful, looks like there is a good chance that disk set will work. Is there much difference between the […]
Show full quote

Thanks, that should be helpful, looks like there is a good chance that disk set will work. Is there much difference between the XP and XL systems? Going by photos my unit is much bigger.
Looks like I will have to stick with the ITT DOS package to get their custom features enabled, is there much point installing a newer version of MS-DOS on a system this age?
Ive got another machine here with an MFM drive and its loading first pop when i switched it on, still loads DOS and has all its software running on it from the company it belonged to, they certianly seem reliable.
I just need to get these disk images onto a 5.25 inch floppy now and I should be sorted.

Your XL model appears to be a true 286 system with 16-bit ISA slots whereas the XP model was a strange hybrid XT/286 system. It was a slight upgrade from their original ITT Xtra XT class system. The XP model only had 8-bit ISA card slots and a proprietary memory card slot which I talk about here. I finally got the memory card working properly once I got my hands on the proper ITT software to take advantage of it. You could only use the XP model's memory card for disk or printer cache. I personally never needed a newer DOS version for the XP model. The XL model you have is not a common find and I personally have never worked on one. I had the original ITT Xtra XT 4.77MHz model back in the 1980s and the XP 286 6MHz model I restored back in 2017. I don't think I've ever seen an XL model on Ebay tbh. Have fun with it. Yours looks to be in good condition and I would personally just keep it to play around with. The PSUs on the Xtra models were very solid and I have yet to come across one with a bad PSU. I would love to see a photo of yours up and running once you get everything sorted.

liqmat wrote on 2025-12-02, 23:32:

nzoomed wrote on 2025-12-02, 21:06:

Thanks, that should be helpful, looks like there is a good chance that disk set will work. Is there much difference between the […]
Show full quote

Thanks, that should be helpful, looks like there is a good chance that disk set will work. Is there much difference between the XP and XL systems? Going by photos my unit is much bigger.
Looks like I will have to stick with the ITT DOS package to get their custom features enabled, is there much point installing a newer version of MS-DOS on a system this age?
Ive got another machine here with an MFM drive and its loading first pop when i switched it on, still loads DOS and has all its software running on it from the company it belonged to, they certianly seem reliable.
I just need to get these disk images onto a 5.25 inch floppy now and I should be sorted.

Your XL model appears to be a true 286 system with 16-bit ISA slots whereas the XP model was a strange hybrid XT/286 system. It was a slight upgrade from their original ITT Xtra XT class system. The XP model only had 8-bit ISA card slots and a proprietary memory card slot which I talk about here. I finally got the memory card working properly once I got my hands on the proper ITT software to take advantage of it. You could only use the XP model's memory card for disk or printer cache. I personally never needed a newer DOS version for the XP model. The XL model you have is not a common find and I personally have never worked on one. I had the original ITT Xtra XT 4.77MHz model back in the 1980s and the XP 286 6MHz model I restored back in 2017. I don't think I've ever seen an XL model on Ebay tbh. Have fun with it. Yours looks to be in good condition and I would personally just keep it to play around with. The PSUs on the Xtra models were very solid and I have yet to come across one with a bad PSU. I would love to see a photo of yours up and running once you get everything sorted.

Looks like ive got something unique and rare, so Its probably best I hang onto it for now!
I have a bunch of machines im sorting out and need a clearout, perhaps more of these systems were sold here in New Zealand, its a shame I dont have the original monitor for it, but at least I can use it with a VGA monitor. I still have its original keyboard, and its solid.

It will be a while before I have enough time to take a proper look at this, but I will keep you posted here. Hopefully I can find someone with the correct disk for one of these.

Speaking of the battery, you probably already saw this post?

liqmat wrote on 2025-12-02, 23:46:

Speaking of the battery, you probably already saw this post?

No I didnt sorry, looks like i need a 6V battery going by that.
I found the battery connected to the motherboard, its in a plastic case with no label, I will open it up later and see whats inside.

Thought you might find it interesting how ITT marketed the systems including your XL model.

Also this article in Spanish. I've attached a Google Lens translation, which isn't perfect, but you'll get the idea.

I was also reading a translated Norwegian article here and found out the different XL models had a price range from $6,000 USD to almost $11,000 USD depending on the configuration. So the XL was their flagship product and it looks like models III and IV were geared more for backend multi terminal work running on a Xenix OS.

liqmat wrote on 2025-12-04, 00:24:

Thought you might find this interesting. The way ITT marketed the systems including your XL model. […]
Show full quote

Thought you might find this interesting. The way ITT marketed the systems including your XL model.

Also this article in Spanish. I've attached a Google Lens translation, which isn't perfect, but you'll get the idea.

The attachment ITT Xtra XL 1.jpg is no longer available

The attachment ITT Xtra XL 2.jpg is no longer available

I was also reading a translated Norwegian article here and found out the different XL models had a price range from $6,000 USD to almost $11,000 USD depending on the configuration. So the XL was their flagship product and it looks like models III and IV were geared more for backend multi terminal work running on a Xenix OS.

I had the impression this was an expensive machine, it weighs a ton and is built solid.
The keyboard appears to have nice mechanical keys and also weighs a ton.
There are a few differences between this and the XP model, I dont see any provision for one of those memory expansion cards anywhere, There is no SIP socket like the XP motherboard has.
Ive got a bunch of memory expansion boards that came with this machine, so might be worth exploring if any of those will work in this.
I had some success getting the machine to boot into DOS last night, but I think the old floppy disk ive got has worn out as its stopped booting from it.
Good news is the CMOS settings are staying saved when soft booting, until i get the battery replaced.
Im hoping to get another DOS boot disk made that will boot up and let me run debug.
Im curious to see what the disk controller config says. The BIOS settings let me select a drive type, from type 1 to 15 and thats all. Im assuming the rest of the parameters will be stored on the disk controller itself?
I have no idea what they are until I can get these drives out to see the label on them.
If i run speedstor, will that be able to configure the drive independently? Im not too familiar with that utility but it looks quite powerful.

Edit, I got into DOS and ran G=C800:5 in debug and all I got was a flashing cursor.
Would any photo of the disk controller be of any help?

Found the model of the disk controller, its made by data technology Corp, model is 5280CAI
Can't find anything specific on that model, but there are other 5280 variants out there.
Got speedstor running but can't identify any drives.
Am I using rhe right command in debug to access the ROM?

The Ontrack disk manager (bootdisk) can identify drive data (cyls/head/sectors/etc) for entering into bios: https://www.philscomputerlab.com/ontrack-disk-manager.html

I need to re-enter the numbers each time I start my AcerPower 386/33w (also with a Ctrl+Alt+Esc Bios entry). Only two numbers need to match. If the whole row is not a match it's not a big deal.

You'll see I ran into your problem in this 2018 post. SpeedStor solved it for me. I see you're using v6.5 of SpeedStor. Might be worth investigating v6.03 which can have different results with different controller models from what I understand. Also, have you checked all your jumpers? I'm sure you have. I had the luxury of having multiple MFM controllers and just used what was the least resistant path. In your case, you said you want to retain the data, if possible, and that means you'll want to stick with the controller that is already paired with your drives. In my case, I just wanted to get a successful low level format which made it a lot less hassle experimenting with different configurations and not worrying about data loss.

Good info here as well: https://retrocmp.de/ctrl/llf/llf.htm

MikeSG wrote on 2025-12-04, 12:45:

The Ontrack disk manager (bootdisk) can identify drive data (cyls/head/sectors/etc) for entering into bios: https://www.philscomputerlab.com/ontrack-disk-manager.html

I need to re-enter the numbers each time I start my AcerPower 386/33w (also with a Ctrl+Alt+Esc Bios entry). Only two numbers need to match. If the whole row is not a match it's not a big deal.

Thanks, this could be quite useful.
I cant seem to find anywhere in this BIOS where to enter the drive parameters, it seems to be all preset, I can select drive "types" from 1 to 15, ive been through them all, but I suspect the disk controller itself might not be configured properly.

liqmat wrote on 2025-12-04, 13:10:

You'll see I ran into your problem in this 2018 post. SpeedStor solved it for me. I see you're using v6.5 of SpeedStor. Might be worth investigating v6.03 which can have different results with different controller models from what I understand. Also, have you checked all your jumpers? I'm sure you have. I had the luxury of having multiple MFM controllers and just used what was the least resistant path. In your case, you said you want to retain the data, if possible, and that means you'll want to stick with the controller that is already paired with your drives. In my case, I just wanted to get a successful low level format which made it a lot less hassle experimenting with different configurations and not worrying about data loss.

Good info here as well: https://retrocmp.de/ctrl/llf/llf.htm

OK, so speedstor should be able to configure the disk controller without going through the cards onboard ROM setup?
I was not too sure if 6.03 was better or not, but looked like 6.5 was not so compatible on older XT systems?
Will give 6.03 a go and see if its any better, ontrack looks like it might be a good option too.
Regarding jumpers, I have not touched any of them on the card, I cant find the manual for this exact card, so have left it alone.
I have not had alot to do with MFM drives, so alot of this is new to me, I did manage to get into a controller on another system I have and set up the drive and it all worked perfect and booted into its original DOS system.

I am not going to waste too much time on this if i cant get it working, but its always nice to see if its possible to take a look at whats on the system. Since this was used for CAD design, there could be some rare software on it thats worth archiving.
I am also running into issues with the floppy disks, probably the age of the disks is not helping, some appear to be showing early signs of mould, so i discarded them, have cleaned the heads and then ran a full scandisk on them to find good disks, despite all that and testing fine with no bad sectors, I booted fine into DOS and ran speedstor, but the next time i ran it, i got a read failure, so not sure if its the drive or disk, but it still tests OK on the machine I formatted it on.

Anyway, It would be good to get a 3.5 inch drive working on this, looks like I will need to add an extra ROM for this unless you have any other suggestions? I could also use XT-IDE if i wanted too, but given its period, it would be nice to keep it authentic and with this machine has come into my hands a ton of MFM drives and controllers, ive got every kind imaginable, adaptec, seagate and western digital to name a few.
Not sure what controller you recommend I go for, but i have the impression that the western digital ones were the best, I can also format these drives in RLL if they are not already done so.
Interestingly, it appears the card thats installed is capable of RLL.

I dont think I need both these drives installed either, not sure on their size yet however. I need to find some other drives to fill the gap in the front though, and I dont have its original blanking plates unfortunatley, I think the floppy drives it would have had also were made to match the front.

Edit:
No luck with contract, it just hangs while scanning for the drives.
Ontrack does however appear to show some config data but would give warning messages about the controller not responding if I tried to perform any tests.
If its getting this info from the controller, it looks like it has a 40mb disk installed but have no idea on the second drive.
I tried disconnecting each individual drive one at a time and repeated running ontrack with no results.
Something I noticed is the cable connecting both drives has no twist, is this normal?

A bit more googling and I also found the manual. I see it says that this card has no user accessible programs.
https://stason.org/TULARC/pc/hard-disk-floppy … 12-driv-94.html

Do none of the 1-15 settings in BIOS match what Speedstor / Ontrack says? I believe the BIOS needs something entered to detect the drive.

Do you have another MFM drive that you know works, so you can rule out everything else?