HP9133 user guide...?

[Joe R.]

At 12:43 AM 4/3/05 +0100, you wrote:
>> >I hope the 9133 is intelligent enough to format the disk itself
>> 
>>    Most HP drives aren't. I've only found ONE that would. I THINK it was a
>> 9153 and it used a ST-225. But it's worth a try. However, most of the HP
>
>I think you've mis-rememnbered. The 9153 (and the 9154, which is the same 
>unit without a floppy) use a special HP drive.

  You're correct. I looked at my disk drive notes later and found a note
that the 9153 did use an HP drive. But I'm pretty certain that the ONE time
I was able to replace a drive and format it and have it work was on a drive
that used a ST-225. I know at least one model of the 9133 uses the ST-225
but don't remember which one it was without looking at my notes however I
THINK it was a 15Mb model.


 It has a 40 pin connector, 
>carrying power and what seems to be 'raw' data (i.e. more like an ST506 
>interface than IDE or SCSI). I've not figured it out yet -- there are 
>custom chips at both ends of the cable and looking with a logic analyser 
>didn't intentify all the signals -- yet. 
>
>I beleive (although I am not certain as all I have is the 9154) that the 
>9153 uses the same floppy drive as the 9114B. That is, the later 
>half-height unit with the single 34 pin power/data connector.
>
>There's a switch or link on the controller board of most of these hard 
>disk units to select whether the floppy is installed. If you pull the 
>floppy drive for any reason, yuo should flip this switch/link so that the 
>thing passes the self-test.
>
>The 9133H does use an ST225, or at least mine do. But I found that if you 
>stick in any old ST225 (i.e. one without the HP low-level format) then 
>it'll fail the power-on diagnostics and you can't do anything with it. 
>Therefore low-level formatting must have been done in one of 4 ways : 
>
>1) An undocumented command, accepted even when the diagnostics failed.
>2) A particular set of link/switch settings (which I don't know)
>3) A special firmware EPROM
>4) Another formatting device that was used to pre-format the drives 
>before they were stuck in the 9133 unit.
>
>I have no idea which of these is the case.
>
>> drives use oddball drives that I was never able to find replacements for.
>> If you do find a replacement drive, install it and just use the normal
>> format utility for your system.  Most HP systems call it "Initialize".
>> >From what I can tell it usually does the equivelent to  a high level
fromat
>
>Yes, the high-level format is possible on all the HP drive units I've 
>come accross. But not the low-leve one.
>
>> (sets up directory, FAT, etc) but not the Low Level fromatting/disk testing
>> so it frequently fails with replacement drives.
>
>That, alas, is my experience too.

    I agree completely.
   Joe

>-tony
>
>