Date   : Wed, 12 Jul 2006 17:37:48 +0100
From   : Mike Tomlinson <mike@...>
Subject: Re: Viglen Winnie / Miniscribe 3438

In article <7.0.1.0.2.20060711224358.0524d030@...>, Joel Rowbottom
<joel@...> writes

>A brief question for those more intelligent than me: will "just any" 
>ST506 drive work, or does it need to be a particular model? If so, is 
>there a list anywhere of drives which are known workers please?

Is there an error in your Subject: did you actually mean an 8438?

If your controller board is MFM, then pretty much any drive will work,
but it will be easiest if you stick with drives that are cyl=612/615,
hd=4, spt=17 i.e. any 20Mb unit; there were loads made by different
manufacturers around that time.

If the controller board is RLL (rare, I think, but a few were used by
third party manufacturers of BBC hard drives), you need to make sure you
get a RLL-capable drive.

I'll assume your controller is MFM. This includes the standard Adaptec
controller used by Acorn and many third parties.  

You could even use a 5.25" drive, e.g. a Seagate ST225, if there are any
left working, which I rather doubt.

For 3.5" MFM, look for:

Miniscribe 8425

Miniscribe 8438 (this is actually a 30Mb RLL drive, but will work fine
on an MFM controller, only formatting to 20Mb)

Kalok KL320

NEC D3126

Rodime RO365

Seagate ST125(-1)

Seagate ST138(-1) (this is actually a 30Mb RLL drive, but will work fine
on an MFM controller, only formatting to 20Mb)

I used the 20Mb MFM hard disk from an Amstrad PC1640HD (anyone remember
those?) with a Beeb and an Adaptec card bought for a couple of quid from
a radio rally and a homebrew 1 MHz bus adapter.  The drive was branded
Amstrad, although it almost certainly was rebadged and not made by them.
It was a really cheap and nasty unit - I remember the stepper motor had
a black plastic encoder which looked a bit like a cog on the underside -
but it worked fine.

M.

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