First post, by Smurfswacker
I'm nervous about posting here since I am just a couple of steps above newbie technically, though as a user and "fiddler" I go way back. I hope one of the more patient members can help me with some basic questions. My beloved Olivetti M24's hard drive suddenly crashed. The "Fixed Disk Ready" message at boot became "Not Ready" and the drive disappeared.
The drive was a 10 MB Shugart MFM. I'd had no problems with it until its demise, but I realize MFM drives don't last forever and I guess the Shugart's time had come. I can't afford the high ebay prices for MFM drives and besides, I'd just end up with another very old drive that would soon kick the bucket. So I bought an XT-IDE card hoping I could use it with one of my smaller IDE drives. However the M24 doesn't recognize the card. All the videos I've seen show an XT-IDE menu at boot but all I see are the standard M24 boot messages. I pulled the old MFM controller in case it was conflicting with the card, but no change.
After extensive googling I've found suggestions that the latest version of the XT-IDE card, revision 4, may have compatibility issues with an M24. My card is a revision 4, jumpered for "Compatible" mode. Has anyone got one of these cards to work on an M24? Do I need to find an earlier revision? Finally, is there a thorough "how to use this thing" manual for XT-IDE cards? All the material I've found online assumes you already have the card working . I'd greatly appreciate any help you can offer.