For MIO owners with hard drives

[RobPattonDotCom]

Just wanted to take a poll to see what other MIO owners, that have hard drives, use for a controller/hard drive in their setup.

No idea how many people even have that sort of system running any longer. And any idea what ICD would have sold back in the day?

 

Rob

[+Larry]

Hi Rob-

I don't use my MIO's much anymore, but I have several Seagate MFM drives, including two (dare I say rare?) 3-1/2" MFM's that I use. I always use an Adaptec 4000-series bridge board with the setup. Works fine, but takes up significant space. If anyone ever re-codes the MIO ROM, 512-byte sectors would be very nice, and would give the MIO a new "lease on life" IMO. My primary system is the Black Box, using an IDE-SCSI adapter with a 2-1/2" laptop drive. Personal opinion -- the usefulness of the MIO ramdisk is limited when the MIO is compared to smaller, faster HD systems. -Larry

[Albert]

Hi Rob-

I don't use my MIO's much anymore, but I have several Seagate MFM drives, including two (dare I say rare?) 3-1/2" MFM's that I use. I always use an Adaptec 4000-series bridge board with the setup. Works fine, but takes up significant space.

This is the exact setup I used when I was running an Atari 8-bit BBS with an MIO board. 1MB MIO, Adaptec 4000 MFM controller, and two 20MB hard drives (one of them being a Seagate ST225, I don't recall the other (a Micropolis drive?)) Did take a lot of space--what I ended up doing was using an old IBM XT hard drive case (the same size as their computer cases at the time--huge!), mounting the two hard drives in there, as well as the Adaptec board, and of course the power supply. I then ran a ribbon cable out the back. Even had a nice Atari logo where the IBM logo normally would be. It was great!

 

..Al

[jaybird3rd]

I also have a question for MIO owners along similar lines.

 

From what you've all said, the original recommended configuration for MIO hard drives seems to have been a SCSI-to-MFM bridge (like the Adaptec 4000) combined with one or more MFM drives. That original hardware is getting very hard to find nowadays (I've got a few MFM drives but have never seen a bridge board for sale on eBay or anywhere else), and it would be great if a similar solution could be found for IDE drives.

 

Has anyone with an MIO ever attempted to use a more modern SCSI-to-IDE bridge board like this one?

[Stephen J. Carden]

I also have a question for MIO owners along similar lines.

 

From what you've all said, the original recommended configuration for MIO hard drives seems to have been a SCSI-to-MFM bridge (like the Adaptec 4000) combined with one or more MFM drives. That original hardware is getting very hard to find nowadays (I've got a few MFM drives but have never seen a bridge board for sale on eBay or anywhere else), and it would be great if a similar solution could be found for IDE drives.

 

Has anyone with an MIO ever attempted to use a more modern SCSI-to-IDE bridge board like this one?

 

All IDE drive use 512 or 1025 sectoring. The MIO can handle only 256 byte sectoring. so that adapter will probley not work unless the adapter will convert the 512 byte sectoring to 256 byte sectoring for you. Adaptec 4000a or 4070 mfm to scsi 1 is what you need or an imbeded scsi drive that will use 256 byte sectoring. The Black Box is the only pbi adapter that can use 512 or 256 byte sectoring. send me a direct e-mail and I will help you find what you need. 'sjcarden@bellsouth.net'

 

Steve

[drac030]

The Black Box is the only pbi adapter that can use 512 or 256 byte sectoring.

 

Not true.

[jaybird3rd]

Not true.

Do you mean it's not true that the Black Box can handle 512 or 256 byte sectoring, or that it's not true that it's the only one that can handle it?

[drac030]

Not true.

Do you mean it's not true that the Black Box can handle 512 or 256 byte sectoring, or that it's not true that it's the only one that can handle it?

 

The latter.

 

It is also not true that "IDE drives use 512 or 1025 sectoring" - there's only 512 there.

[MEtalGuy66]

The MIO manual lists the Seagate ST225N as a drive that works..

 

I have tried the following and found them also to work fine:

 

ST225N 4heads 615cylinders

ST138N 4heads 615cylinders

ST157N 6heads 615cylinders

 

I was able to format each of these with at least one 16meg partition.

I am trying some other drives, as I get time.

[densonj]

I have an old 1M MIO attached to an old Apple 20SC Case with a built-in controller and 20M HD. I picked it up a few years ago on e-Bay. I'm thinking of putting a 40M HD on it. My original MIO system used an old XT PC case with an Adaptec controller and 40M HD. I never used up all the space on that one. The old system ran on an 800XL with a RAMBO.

 

I run the current MIO on an old 130XE with an old Trans-Key adapter installed which I also got off e-Bay a few years ago. I love it!

[+Larry]

I also have a question for MIO owners along similar lines.

 

From what you've all said, the original recommended configuration for MIO hard drives seems to have been a SCSI-to-MFM bridge (like the Adaptec 4000) combined with one or more MFM drives. That original hardware is getting very hard to find nowadays (I've got a few MFM drives but have never seen a bridge board for sale on eBay or anywhere else), and it would be great if a similar solution could be found for IDE drives.

 

Has anyone with an MIO ever attempted to use a more modern SCSI-to-IDE bridge board like this one?

 

I use an IDE -> SCSI adapter similar to that one with the BB. I tried it, and it does *not* work with my MIO. Nevertheless, these are handy adapters since they allow the use of laptop and smaller IDE drives instead of "big" SCSI 3-1/2" drives. I have only found *one* SCSI laptop drive, and it has an unusual drive connector on it designed for a specific notebook interconnect. If the MIO can be revised to R/W 512-byte sectors then this type adapter *should* work with it, also. -Larry