New Mega STe, Hard Drive Trouble

[jmetal88]

I just got a German Mega STe this past Friday, and it arrived in great shape, fully working, with a 50MB hard drive installed. The first time I booted it up, it had no problems, but the second time, the German TOS ROM refused to boot, giving me a message that, I assume (I can't understand German very well), was telling me it couldn't find a boot medium. I installed English TOS 2.06 ROMs later, and when I got them booting, the hard drive was simply absent from the desktop. I've tried a couple of drive formatting utilities, one from Atari and one from ICD, but the Atari one says something about the drive not being supported (and mentions getting a replacement wincap file?) and the ICD one says it can't determine the size of the drive (even though I can choose ST-157R from the list, which I think should work, since the drive is an ST-157N). The first time I booted the computer, I could swear I heard the hard drive heads seek as the drive powered up, but it doesn't do that any more.

 

So first of all, do you guys think the hard drive's dead, or did it just get corrupted somehow and I don't have the proper formatting utility?

 

Second, if the hard drive is dead, I feel like it's probably something on the logic board, since the platters are still spinning (although I suppose it's also possible that the stepper motor that drives the heads went out). Does anyone know anything about repairing these? The drive LED still flashes when anything tries to access it.

 

Third, if I had to get a new drive, what would be a good, inexpensive option? I noticed a guy that has a bunch of Quantum ProDrive ELS SCSI drives on eBay for around $20 apiece, would those work? They appear to be 80MB models that were probably originally in Macs (there is an Apple sticker on the front of the drive in the picture).

 

If those options don't pan out, the guy that sent the Mega STe to me has offered to send me another drive, but I'd really like to save this drive, if possible.

[ParanoidLittleMan]

That ST-157 is most likely dead. Fixing it is pretty much questionable. I would not waste time, unless it is some trivial error. In my case for instance, in ST-157 power fuse blown one moment, so I could fix it fast. But I did not use that drive regularry. And don't recommend to get some very old hard drive as replacement. 80 MB drives are too old, and you should get for 10-20 bucks something newer, and much bigger capacity.

Mega STE's internal SCSI adapter supports max 1GB drive capacity. It means not that you can't use larger drive, but can access only 1GB. Another limit is that drive must be set to parity off - and it is what is not possible at most. As best choice I see some IBM SCSI drive of 2-4 GB. They have parity set jumper, and are compatible.

There is solution to make adapter capable for over 1GB, and parity support: http://atari.8bitchip.info/modmste1.html

[jmetal88]

Wow, thanks a lot for that link! I enjoy modding my older computers, and if that will help me use a larger, cheaper drive, I'm all for it!

[Charlie_]

In both of my Mega STe computers I have unplugged the internal HDD and only use the Ultrasatan.

It may be a little costly compared to a cheap old scsi drive, but I think it is worth it.

Transferring files and games from a PC with the SD card is so convenient and fast.

 

http://www.lotharek.pl/product.php?pid=94

[jmetal88]

I tend to prefer hard drives to flash storage most of the time.

 

I have now ordered the following:

 

1) The cheapest working SCSI hard drive I could find on eBay (it was an approximately 35GB model made by HP, supposedly supporting both Single Ended and LVD modes)

2) An 80-pin to 50-pin plus power connector adapter for SCSI drives (the drive I ordered had one of the 80-pin connectors on it)

3) A parity generator chip from DigiKey (same model recommended in that link above)

 

Once the DigiKey order comes in, I'll make the mods to the controller inside the Mega STe, and hopefully I will be able to use the new drive shortly thereafter. All in all, I spent about the same amount of money as I would have buying a 'vintage' SCSI drive that would have already been compatible, but this way I will at least get the benefit of more storage space and a newer drive with more life left in it.

[jmetal88]

Eh, I did the parity mod, but I'm having trouble getting the thing to work with the new hard drive. Unlike the old hard drive, this one does actually respond to a format command (and since it takes about an hour to complete, I assume it's formatting the whole drive). The problem with this one is, after the format, it'll give one of numerous errors. For example, I've seen it give a defect list error several times and a medium format error a couple of times. Does the drive absolutely have to be formatted with a PC for this mod to work with a larger capacity drive? If so, I need to either track down my lost SCSI controller or buy a new one off eBay.

[ParanoidLittleMan]

jmetal88: you did only parity mod, or complete mod for overriding 1GB limit ?

Format is completely unnecessary with newer drives. This is why AHDI SW is not recommended - may take ages to format, if formats at all.

What you need is partititoning and initialising partitions - what usually goes at once in better SW.

It seems that you did complete mod, according to question "Does the drive absolutely have to be formatted with a PC for this mod to work with a larger capacity drive?"

The answer is: no . But you must use my parititoning SW then on Atari. No other driver or partit. SW exists, what can handle this mod. Partitioner goes with driver too, and then no need for BigDOS, what is good. It is commercial, and price is 10 Euros. http://atari.8bitchip.info/pphdr.php

You may see how partitioning goes in video. On that page modded Mega STE driver is not mentioned specifically, but there is such version. That SW allows usage of internal, modded drive with Satan or UltraSatan disk too. Best that you contact me in e-mail if interested.

[jmetal88]

jmetal88: you did only parity mod, or complete mod for overriding 1GB limit ?

Format is completely unnecessary with newer drives. This is why AHDI SW is not recommended - may take ages to format, if formats at all.

What you need is partititoning and initialising partitions - what usually goes at once in better SW.

It seems that you did complete mod, according to question "Does the drive absolutely have to be formatted with a PC for this mod to work with a larger capacity drive?"

The answer is: no . But you must use my parititoning SW then on Atari. No other driver or partit. SW exists, what can handle this mod. Partitioner goes with driver too, and then no need for BigDOS, what is good. It is commercial, and price is 10 Euros. http://atari.8bitchip.info/pphdr.php

You may see how partitioning goes in video. On that page modded Mega STE driver is not mentioned specifically, but there is such version. That SW allows usage of internal, modded drive with Satan or UltraSatan disk too. Best that you contact me in e-mail if interested.

 

Actually, I had just done the parity mod at the time I had made the post. I tried the capacity mod afterward to see if it would help, but it didn't. I was just asking because I put a 36GB drive in the machine and couldn't get anything to partition it correctly.

 

The ADHI software wouldn't actually format the drive, so I was using the ICD software.

Edited December 10, 2013 by jmetal88

[jmetal88]

I got it working, finally. Turns out I had to both format it and partition it with the German SCSITOOL program, AND I had to set the 'Termination Power' jumper on the 50-pin to 80-pin adapter I bought. Even so, SCSITOOL shows the drive capacity at 512MB instead of 1GB. It actually showed it as 1.2GB prior to the format, but claimed to find a bunch of bad sectors at exactly 512MB in, so I'm not sure what's going on there. At any rate, I know the parity generator is functioning properly and that the drive is electrically capable of communicating with the Mega STe. Now if I can find my old ISA SCSI controller, maybe I can try using the high capacity driver and BigDOS.