IDE to ESDI Conversion. IDE & ESDI pinouts sought.
Guntram Blohm
: IDE to ESDI Conversion. IDE & ESDI pinouts sought.
: I have a couple of 400mb ESDI hard drives, and now that IDE controllers
: are <$20 (in whatever country you come from)
: I think it's worth my whilelooking into how to wire on to the other.
: All I know so far is that BOTH require the CMOS to know the number of heads,
: cylinders, etc, and that both kinds of drives seem to have roughtly the same
: number of pins (ESDI are card-edge, however)
: I am convinced that it is a simple matter to hook the two together,@with
: perhaps just a few logic chips in-between. I'll post the exact method
: that works when I've done it.
Well, i'm quite convinced that this *doesn't* work. An IDE controller
doesn't really control anything, it just passes through the bus signals
that are send to the HD port.
The IDE *drive* does the real controlling -- the thing that, in earlier
times, an MFM/RLL-controller like the WD1003 was supposed to do.
(basically, these controllers transformed a request like 'read head
h track t sector s' to 'move the head out n times, wait for the sector
to come and read it'). In a two drive configuration, the controller on the
first IDE drive does the work for the second one as well.
Now, ESDI follows the same concept as those old separate controller --
an ESDI controller basically works like an old MFM/RLL controller
(only faster, and it's not compatible to those). So if you try
to hook an ESDI drive to an IDE controller, you miss the 'controlling'
part -- the IDE controller relies on the drive to do it, the drive relies
on the controller to do it.
: in the meantime, I need:-
: E S D I Pinouts Wanted
: and
: I D E Pinouts Wanted
: Basically, what signals/timings are coming down which wires, etc.
Sorry, i don't have them (but i would be interested in getting them if
possible). But then, it's probably not worth while ...
: Can *Anyone* help me get these, or, help me find out WHERE to get these ?
: Thanx.
: Chris Drake
Ian Bale
convert from ESDI to SCSI.
I cant remember who off hand, but it was on eof the major Hard Drive manufactures that used
to make a ESDI -> SCSI interface. Its not manufactured anymore, but maybe you can advertise
for a 2nd hand one. The small card allowed to to plug in 2 ESDI drives, which it would then
fool the SCSI bus into thinking were two partitions on a 'single' physical device.
As far as I'm aware, its just plug in and go.
I saw one of these cards advertised in Micromart ( a UK magazine ) for £40 last year. Maybe
someone else can confirm the manufacturer and name of this card to give you a better
chance of finding one.
Hope this helps you,
/Elfy.
==========================================================
Sent by Elfrick: etl...@deep-thought.ericsson.se
==========================================================
Note: Despite my e-mail address, I live/work in the UK, and have no connection
with Sweden, other than working for a Swedish company. Please send
replies in English, not Swedish. Thanks.
SIR P/L
IDE to ESDI Conversion. IDE & ESDI pinouts sought.
I have a couple of 400mb ESDI hard drives, and now that IDE controllers
are <$20 (in whatever country you come from) I think it's worth my whilelooking into how to wire on to the other.
All I know so far is that BOTH require the CMOS to know the number of heads,
cylinders, etc, and that both kinds of drives seem to have roughtly the same
number of pins (ESDI are card-edge, however)
I am convinced that it is a simple matter to hook the two together,@with
perhaps just a few logic chips in-between. I'll post the exact method
that works when I've done it.
in the meantime, I need:-
E S D I Pinouts Wanted
and
I D E Pinouts Wanted
Basically, what signals/timings are coming down which wires, etc.
Can *Anyone* help me get these, or, help me find out WHERE to get these ?
Ron Gast 575-6892
: I agree with Guntram, you can't (easily) convert from ESDI to IDE, you can however
: convert from ESDI to SCSI.
: I cant remember who off hand, but it was on eof the major Hard Drive manufactures that used
: to make a ESDI -> SCSI interface. Its not manufactured anymore, but maybe you can advertise
: for a 2nd hand one. The small card allowed to to plug in 2 ESDI drives, which it would then
: fool the SCSI bus into thinking were two partitions on a 'single' physical device.
: As far as I'm aware, its just plug in and go.
: I saw one of these cards advertised in Micromart ( a UK magazine ) for £40 last year. Maybe
: someone else can confirm the manufacturer and name of this card to give you a better
: chance of finding one.
I have one that was made by Adaptec that I salvaged from an old 3COM server. It
is labeled as a ACB-4520A. Works great with my Adaptec 1542B interface. Also salvaged
the 2 630MB drives. If I can just find a suitable cabinet to put it in.
Regards,
Ron
Tuomo Härkönen
>I cant remember who off hand, but it was on eof the major Hard Drive
>manufactures that used
>to make a ESDI -> SCSI interface. Its not manufactured anymore, but maybe you
>can advertise
>for a 2nd hand one. The small card allowed to to plug in 2 ESDI drives, which it
>would then
>fool the SCSI bus into thinking were two partitions on a 'single' physical
>device.
> ==========================================================
> Sent by Elfrick: etl...@deep-thought.ericsson.se
> ==========================================================
>Note: Despite my e-mail address, I live/work in the UK, and have no connection
> with Sweden, other than working for a Swedish company. Please send
> replies in English, not Swedish. Thanks.
3com made some servers with scsi-esdi converter. The converter itself was made
by Adaptec.
Tuomo
l...@dandelion.com
Date: Mon, 25 Apr 1994 12:46:27 GMT
>I cant remember who off hand, but it was on eof the major Hard Drive
>manufactures that used
>to make a ESDI -> SCSI interface. Its not manufactured anymore, but maybe you
>can advertise
>for a 2nd hand one. The small card allowed to to plug in 2 ESDI drives, which it
>would then
>fool the SCSI bus into thinking were two partitions on a 'single' physical
>device.
Emulex also made the MD-21 and MD-24 ESDI-SCSI controllers.
Leonard
John Lee
>I cant remember who off hand, but it was on eof the major Hard Drive
>manufactures that used to make a ESDI -> SCSI interface. Its not
>manufactured anymore, but maybe you can advertise for a 2nd hand one.
>The small card allowed to to plug in 2 ESDI drives, which it would then
>fool the SCSI bus into thinking were two partitions on a 'single'
>physical device.
>
>As far as I'm aware, its just plug in and go.
The ESDI-to-SCSI adapter I have is the MD21 Drive Controller by Emulex. It
was used in Sun Microsystems Sun-3 "Shoeboxes". Another one also used by
Sun was made by Adaptec, but I don't know the model number.
I don't think the MD21 isn't just plug-'n-go, though. It needs to be
programmed with the drive specifications via a SCSI Mode Select command.
Also, while MD21 allows up to two drives to be attached, the drives are
kept separate and appear at two different SCSI LUN's (Local Unit Number's)
under the MD21's SCSI address.
Currently I'm trying to connect a 380Mb ESDI drive to my MD21, but I think
the drive is incompatible. The drive apparantly uses a higher bandwidth
ESDI interface than the controller can handle.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The crew faces deadly GURUs! Next time on AmigaDOS: The Next Generation.
+--------+ John Lee
| HUGHES |
+--------+ ARPAnet: jh...@hac2arpa.hac.com
The above opinions are those of the user and not of those of this machine.
Gary Wood
>In article <2p5dd7$a...@erinews.ericsson.se> etl...@etlxd20.ericsson.se writes:
>>I cant remember who off hand, but it was on eof the major Hard Drive
>>manufactures that used to make a ESDI -> SCSI interface. Its not
>>manufactured anymore, but maybe you can advertise for a 2nd hand one.
>>The small card allowed to to plug in 2 ESDI drives, which it would then
>>fool the SCSI bus into thinking were two partitions on a 'single'
>>physical device.
>>
>>As far as I'm aware, its just plug in and go.
>The ESDI-to-SCSI adapter I have is the MD21 Drive Controller by Emulex. It
>was used in Sun Microsystems Sun-3 "Shoeboxes". Another one also used by
>Sun was made by Adaptec, but I don't know the model number.
ACB-4520 was the Adaptec target adapter.
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>The crew faces deadly GURUs! Next time on AmigaDOS: The Next Generation.
> +--------+ John Lee
> | HUGHES |
> +--------+ ARPAnet: jh...@hac2arpa.hac.com
>The above opinions are those of the user and not of those of this machine.
Gary
Shoou-yu tang
Domain SCSI card (but not with two ESDI drives on single MD21, I can't get the
second ESDI drive to show up at all.) The software from future domain has no
problem with MD21.
Tang
Wolfgang Jung
IDE Drives. is there a IDE->SCSI Converter around.
(To hook up IDE Drives via the Adapter onto the SCSI Bus.)
Please answer by mail
Gruss
Wolfgang