"D9060" and ST-506 hard drives

From: B. Degnan (billdeg_at_degnanco.com)
Date: 2007-03-22 13:07:24

Is there anyone here who has successfully replaced the original Tandon 602s 
with an ST-506 brick in their CBM D9060?  The specs seem to indicate that 
these are compatible drives.  There is a sprinkle of posts on the web here 
and there about replacing the Tandon drives on the 9090/9060, but I did not 
find anything specifically about an actual ST-506 as a successful 
replacement.  I have successfully replaced the 602s with an ST-225, but 
it's a 1/2 height drive which makes it hard to fit everything back into the 
chassis.  The 506 is a better fit.  I would prefer to use the 506.  The 
cylinders and heads on both drives are 153/4 according to Internet sources.

I have 8 NOS St-506's, so far the first two have not formatted on the CBM 
"D9060".

Background:
When I install an ST-506 drive and enter ?ds$ I get the "73" OK code, the 
controller, etc. are OK. To install the 506 I removed a working/booting ST 
225; I have confidence in the hard drive controllers/power/cables.

I was able to get both 506's to pass diagnostics in an IBM XT, but so far I 
could get neither to format on the XT.  Could be partially functional 
drives/bad luck?  Watching the formatting, my XT HD controller looks for a 
154th cylinder and then the process bombs.  I am not sure if the ST-506, 
being only 5MB, is too old for the XT controller, but I can't imagine that 
the controller is not able to handle the 506. It's an orig stock IBM XT 
controller.  Do I have bad drives?  Try a third drive?

I have more drives to try, but I thought I'd ask before I unpack another 
506 for experimentation.

One last thing...I call this a "D9060" because I snipped jumper J14 on the 
controller to change from 6 to 4 cylinders.



Bill D


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