connecting a Syquest drive to the Mega STe

[Randy]

Howdy!  I just got a Syquest removable drive, the same drive that is used in the Megafile 44 and some carts too!  Currently, I have no internal HD in the Mega STe, so I was looking to attach the Syquest directly to the internal Atari SCSI driver board cable, is this a doable thing? I think it should be doable, the question is what software that needs to be available to operate the drive and its associated cartridges.  Is there a "park" program that needs to be used every time a switch in cartridges is used?  In the future, I would probably like to connect this externally, I am guessing to the ACSI port?  What would I need to connect externally?  Thanks

[Zogging Hell]

On a Mega STe or normal STe the Syquest needs to be used like a normal hard drive, you can't hot swap the cartridges while the drive is in use.

 

To install you need something like HD Driver (other hard drive software is available ) which will partition the disk and install a driver onto the boot sector of the disk as you would with a normal hard drive. I believe the Syquest is auto parking (it should be as it needs to eject disks) so park shouldn't be needed.

 

To connect it to the Mega you will need a 'Link' cable that converts ACSI signal to SCSI.

[Randy]

Thanks Zog, so it looks like I can connect the Syquest using the Mega STe internal hard drive cable and would use a floppy with hard driver utilities to write a boot sector to the Syquest cartridge, correct?  Also, would I need to write a boot sector to every Syquest cartridge I would use? 

[+SoulBuster]

If the SyQuest is your boot Hard drive, yes you will need to write to each  disk for booting as you will not want to eject the boot drive with TOS running.

 

The best setup for SyQuest drives is as a storage/backup device to another HD.  Best has new 340 mb HD drives that drop into the Mega STE without mods for $75.

 

http://www.best-electronics-ca.com/hard-dri.htm

 

You could also get a SCSItoSD and install it inside.

 

https://store.inertialcomputing.com/category-s/100.htm

[Zogging Hell]

On 7/17/2020 at 6:17 PM, Randy said:

Thanks Zog, so it looks like I can connect the Syquest using the Mega STe internal hard drive cable and would use a floppy with hard driver utilities to write a boot sector to the Syquest cartridge, correct?  Also, would I need to write a boot sector to every Syquest cartridge I would use? 

Sorry, totally missed this for some reason. Soulbuster has answered your question I think. All I would add is that would really need to think of each disk as a seperate hard drive. 44mb is going to be a little tight if you want to use a lot of apps, but can allow you to do some nice things like have a different disk/ hard drive for each different set up. So a DTP/ WP setup could have NVDI and some other stuff on and then a graphics/ CAD disk could have a more stripped back set up perhaps. Or you could experiment with a GDOS setup on one disk or replacement desktop on another. When I had time to use the ST more I quite enjoyed creating different set ups for different programs, and a big hard drive can get a bit complex for this as you need boot up selectors and what not, not to mention numerous assign.sys files.

[atarian1]

15 hours ago, Zogging Hell said:

Sorry, totally missed this for some reason. Soulbuster has answered your question I think. All I would add is that would really need to think of each disk as a seperate hard drive. 44mb is going to be a little tight if you want to use a lot of apps, but can allow you to do some nice things like have a different disk/ hard drive for each different set up. So a DTP/ WP setup could have NVDI and some other stuff on and then a graphics/ CAD disk could have a more stripped back set up perhaps. Or you could experiment with a GDOS setup on one disk or replacement desktop on another. When I had time to use the ST more I quite enjoyed creating different set ups for different programs, and a big hard drive can get a bit complex for this as you need boot up selectors and what not, not to mention numerous assign.sys files.

Yep. That's why my first hard drive was a Syquest. I had one platter for color stuff, one for mono productivity, one for music and one for Spectre GCR. I even configured the Spectre cart to autoboot into MacOS so I never saw the GEM desktop when I wanted to use my Mac apps.

[Zogging Hell]

6 hours ago, atarian1 said:

Yep. That's why my first hard drive was a Syquest. I had one platter for color stuff, one for mono productivity, one for music and one for Spectre GCR. I even configured the Spectre cart to autoboot into MacOS so I never saw the GEM desktop when I wanted to use my Mac apps.

Ironically my Mac Plus relies on my Syquest drive for its hard drive on one of its disks. Completely unusable without a hard disk (thank god we had TOS/ GEM is ROM, the floppy swapping is horrendous) so the Syquest was actually a godsend.

[TGB1718]

I have a Syquest drive with 10Meg removable cartridges that I used long, long ago, unfortunately, when I

powered it up recently it sounded like the bearings had dried out in the motor and it wouldn't read disks, something

to service at a later date.

 

What I used to connect mine to the ST was an ICD interface and an OMTI board to interface the Syquest drive to

the ST, something like this

http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/sms/3001206_OMTI_5000_Series_Reference_Aug85.pdf

 

as my Syquest drive had "egde connectors", not the 50 pin parallel SCSI plug, the OMTI bridged this difference

 

If your drive is newer, then it may have a standard SCSI interface in which case you don't need an OMTI board

 

Let me know what connector yours uses and I'll see if I can find mine and photo them with the OMTI to give

you an idea

Edited August 1, 2020 by TGB1718
Update

[djglish]

I have 4 different Syquest drives.

 

The original one a 105mb SCSI drive is mounted in a box that I used with my ST.  I paid $600 for the 4 bay box, 105mb hard drive and an ICD AdSCSI board.  Over time I added the Syquest drive, a CDRom drive and a Tape backup drive.  Since the Syquest was the same size as the hard drive it was great for doing backups (much better than the tape drive ever was).

 

I also have the following:

EZ135 SCSI drive mounted in an external case

EZflyer 230 SCSI drive in its own external case

SparQ 1gb Parallel port drive in its own case

 

If  you put your Syquest in an external SCSI case you can look for an old ICD Link or Link2. 

[doctor_shred]

I have used syquest drives on my 1040STE prior to getting the UltraSatan.  I used them as extenral hard drives through an ICD link.  The best way I found was to create a single TOS and Windows partition (drive C) with HD Driver.  Then I could transfer files to my PC and use it as a bootable hard drive.

 

As suggested above, I ended up with multiple disks / cartridges for different applications e.g. low res games, high res music / MIDI etc.  

 

I don't see why it wouldn't work as an internal drive in a MegaSTE.