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Sun20 Hard Drive

Posted by: fri0701 on 2020-03-27 04:41:22 I'm trying to get a Sun20 Hard Drive working in my Lisa 2/10, but I'm having some issues. The drive will spin up, and get to a solid red light (seemingly indicating it's "ready"), but it isn't shown in the boot selection dropdown. If I type Apple-3 to attempt to boot from it, I get an error 85 "drive can't keep up".  Does anyone have experience with using this drive that can give me a few pointers? I tried to look around for a manual, but couldn't find much. Thanks!

Posted by: lisa2 on 2020-03-27 08:15:03 Do you have the parallel cable plugged into the par. port on the back of the Lisa? Many Lisa's with the Sun20 drive have the parallel ribbon cable going out the back of the system to the external par port.  If that is not plugged in, the system will not "see" the HD. Rick

Posted by: fri0701 on 2020-03-27 08:33:50 Hi Rick, Thanks for your reply. I'm trying to use this drive with a 2/10, so there is no parallel port on the back of the machine. I was under the assumption that I could use the Widget drive connector in the card cage bay, since I believe that cable is an internal parallel cable on the 2/10. Does that sound correct?

Posted by: lisa2 on 2020-03-27 09:05:30 Yes, on a 2/10 you should be able to use the internal Widget parallel cable.  Be careful, this cable does not have a mark to indicate pin 1 and the connector is not always keyed, so it's easy to connect it backwards. Rick

Posted by: fri0701 on 2020-03-27 09:52:02 Is there an easy way to tell which is the correct orientation for the parallel cable? I did notice that the cable doesn't have a notch, so like you said, it's a bit confusing. When I turn on the Lisa with the drive connected, the drive spins up, the head stepper motor looks like it travels its full range, then the full range back, and then a solid red light comes up on the drive. The drive still doesn't show up as a boot option. If I press Apple-3 to select it anyways, it looks like maybe the stepper motor moves just a hair, and then the Lisa promptly gives an Error 85.  A couple days ago, this drive gave no sign of life when I plugged it in the same way. I moved the stepper motor by hand just a tiny bit, and it felt like it was stuck in place when I went to do that. After "unsticking" the motor, now the drive will spin up. For a while, it was giving me a "1101" error with its flashing light, which apparently corresponds to a "Seek error during burn-in or recal" error on this model of drive. However, this seems to have cleared up after further use.

Posted by: lisa2 on 2020-03-27 11:32:15 There is an extra grove on the connector to indicate pin 1. Rick

Posted by: fri0701 on 2020-03-27 12:29:11 Ah, that clears a lot up! Thanks for the tip. I tried the drive in my 2/5, using the parallel port connection on the back of the machine and the upper drive connector for power. I get the same results as when testing with the 2/10.

Posted by: superjer2000 on 2020-03-27 14:19:16 Out of curiosity who makes the mechanism for this sun remarketing drive?  Can you take some pictures of it?

Posted by: fri0701 on 2020-03-27 18:09:40 Out of curiosity who makes the mechanism for this sun remarketing drive?  Can you take some pictures of it? It's a MiniScribe 8425, I think. I'll try to take some pictures some time in the next few days and post them here!

Posted by: superjer2000 on 2020-03-27 20:43:22 Thanks!  I love vintage HDs - although the 8425 is new enough that I had a few of the scsi versions over the years. I'd assume the Sun version for the Lisa was MFM?

Posted by: fri0701 on 2020-03-29 18:40:00 Here's some photos of the drive - I wanted to take a video of it spinning up, but my 1.8A Lisa PSU decided to bite the dust today.  :sad: Time for a re-cap project!

Posted by: MarNo84 on 2020-04-03 01:50:25 Oh beautiful .. a SUN20 😀 I really would like to get my hands on such Drive-Kit for my Lisa here ...anyone who would like to get in touch for a trade or so? 😉

Posted by: compu_85 on 2020-05-26 09:10:04 Has the formatting software / commands for these drives been lost to time?

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