Conference 7.286::atarist

RF Microtech (Bob Fitzpatrick) puts together a nice 50 MB Seagate unit for $895. 
He's at 4 Carmel Drive, N. Billerica, MA 01862 (508) 667-8900 BBS: 663-7795. 
His unit is compact, vertically oriented for small footprint, and provides 
an external SCSI interface for daisy chain of additional SCSI devices.

I bought a used SH204 hard disk.  It was a very, very early model. 
Since I've had it, I had to:

	- Repair the power supply

	- Either the cables or the Adaptek 4000 has been flacky since
	the very beginning, and has since been replaced.

	- The drive itself had an extra layer of solder on the fingers. 
	I'm still using the drive, and it appears to work okay.  It
	occasionally acts funny, but I think it's software.

	- I've since repackaged it all into a new box so that I could
	add a second power supply and drive.

If I knew this drive was going to be this much trouble when I bought it,
I'd have thought twice about it, but I would have bought it anyway and
used it for parts.

If you do get a used drive, try to get one that's fairly recent.  I
think this drive saw a LOT of abuse before I ever touched it.  The RF
MicroTech pricelist has a lot of other drives on it, new and used, that
aren't so large and are more affordable than his 50MB beauty.

I recall that Martin Minow (BOLT::MINOW) is still halfheartedly trying
to sell a 30MB Supra drive - I know he would have taken very good care
of it, so you might drop him a line and get the details.

I bought the RF Microtech drive about a month ago. It has the Seagate ST157
drive mechanism, and is 48 Mb.

Its performed well, and I'm happy with the unit. I use it with Neodesk, and
the two work well together.

However, I did/do have a small problem. A nice feature of the drive is that
read/write errors are shown in the lower right of the screen. My screen
started showing lots of these errors when I tried to copy certain files
(Monopoly image files, strangly enough!). The problem tended to go away
after a few hours of use. Troubleshooting showed the problem to be my
ST! Apparently my ST, an early one, has a problem with its Glue/DMA chip
when it is cold. One or the other is flaking out. I found out by swapping
these two chips with those from a newer 1040 ST, and the problem went away.
But even with the problem, the software retries so you don't get any
permanent data errors - just that little incrementing counter and sometimes
a delay of about a tenth of a second until its successful. And, again, it
only happens within the first few hours and only with some files.

I thought the problem was with the Glue chip, and replaced it with a new
one, but the problem remained. So when I get around to it, I'll replace
the DMA chip next. I'd never used the DMA port up to this point, so maybe
that's why the problem never surfaced prior to this.

    I have had a Supra 20meg 3 1/2" HD for a long time (>2 1/2 years) and
    although since day one it sounded like it was on its last legs when it
    powered up (I think it has the noisy when starting up MiniScribe disk),
    it has run reliably for that entire time, power cycled between uses.
    Once I had it act funny, but powering down and then up again cured
    whatever the problem was (I think ST memory got hosed by an errant
    program).
    
    							-Dave 

    Re: .4
    
    p.s. Bought from CompuClub when still in business.

	I have a Supra 30 Meg disk that I got from The Bit Bucket in Newton Ma.
	No problems yet. Uneventful installation.

	price was about $675 but it has scsi and Atari daisy-chains on it so
	another scsi disk add-on will be cheaper.

	/pjh

    You should investigate Computer Cache in Quincy. They advertise
    nationally and offer fully assembled ICD kits with Seagate drives---40 MB 
    ($799) to 65 MB ($995).
    

    			<85MB for $800>
    
    I recently purchased a 85MB ST296N 28ms thru Computer Shopper and put same
    in ICD's SCSI drive kit. All for $800 plus shipping. Send me mail if
    more info needed.