SIDER II Terminator and Troubleshooting Questions

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SIDER II Terminator and Troubleshooting Questions

Hello.. With A bunch of Apple Stuff I got A SIDER II hard drive and Card..When I initially tested it it worked fine.. but as I was working with it the drive itself became unplugged. After restarting the Apple IIe and drive .. Now It dosn't boot I tried the Installation Process and the card seems to pass but it says the drive failed to start up fast enough.. And after Researching it on the WEB I discovered The Terminator was missing.(before I didn't know it needed one).The Drive SEEMS to Spin up Just Like It did before and Seems To make the same sounds.. Does anyone know about the SIDER and how to Troubleshoot it and where to get A terminator plug or how to make one or a Schematic ..And possibly what kind of drives are in these in case I need to Replace,,Also is there a ROM file so I can Burn a New one for the CARD just in case.I am Assuming its a 2732?.,I am a fairly decent self taught Electronics Tech Thanks In Advance Mike

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Re: SIDER II Terminator and Troubleshooting Questions

Not sure about the Sider II. Had an original Sider Waaaaay back in the day (when it was new!)

Don't recall a terminator for it but I do recall if you did not park the heads prior to shut down/power off all hell would break loose.
I know, no help but I no longer have the manual for the drive (although I do have the First Class Peripherals disk)

As yours is a Sider II (20 megs?) I do not know what is different.
Zan

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Re: SIDER II Terminator and Troubleshooting Questions

I don't know about the Sider II either, but the original Sider had a problem with the installation disks. You must only use a copy of the original disks to do the installation. Once you use a disk, it cannot be done again with the same disks.

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Re: SIDER II Terminator and Troubleshooting Questions

Yes I figured Not Parking the drives probably caused the problem.. And I am thinking not having a Terminator in place is causing the circuitry not to recognize the drive?? I have found out how to create my own Terminator,, But Can't be sure which cable I have,, a SASI or a SCSI? so I can see the pinouts to know how to make the
Terminator..

Each terminated signal is connect by:
> * 220 Ohm to +5 volt (TERMPW)
> * 330 Ohm to ground.
> The 18 signal that are terminated are:
> I/O, Req, C/D, Sel, Msg, Rst, Ack, Bsy, Atn, DB(p), DB(7) ... DB(0)

But I need to know Where these are on the Female connector on the back of the drive..

And If you can only use the disks once Where can I get New Disks To download,, And HOW can I get them on my CFFA card It is already to go with with Dos on it..

Mike

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Re: SIDER II Terminator and Troubleshooting Questions

Mike,

I am fairly certain that the Sider II was a SCSI Drive.
You can pick up a SCSI Terminator up on ebay for a
couple of bucks.

Steven Smile

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Re: SIDER II Terminator and Troubleshooting Questions

Steven your partially right the much later SIDER's were SCSI But from what I have read very few from the end of their life..

Thanks for the replies so far... This is what I have Found out so far... The SIDER drive I have has a DB-37/DC-37 cable pinout and from all the reading I have done its a SASI cable an early SCSI-1 .. The main board in the Drive housing is A SASI to MFM converter board called a bridge,,,After taking it apart I found a NEC5126 MFM drive,, which has 4 heads and 615 cylinders..

I removed it and put in into a IBM 5160 And tried to FDISK and format it and It would not even pick it up.. So I had a Known Good ST-412 I set the pins on it as Drive one.. and hooked it to the SIDER II cables as the ST-412 is a full height drive .. then ran the Installation On the apple IIe it pass all test and tried to do the install but the software is preset for a drive having 4 head and 615 cylinders.. 20megs.. the ST-412 is only a 10meg and 306 cylinders .. it gave an too small and to many bad sectors errors..

So I assume the D5126 orginal drive is toast.. as it will not work in the IBM or the SIDER and My Question now is As the D5126 is rather hard to find and then expensive .. QUESTION...Can I use a SST-225 as it has the same 4 head and 615 cylinders??...

I have also found Both the Controller card Eprom file and the Bridge card Eprom file. to burn into 2732 eproms.. Icould upload them somewhere for someone in the future,, Also the Controller Card Schematic .. giving me the pinouts I need to create A terminator plug..

Mike

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Re: SIDER II Terminator and Troubleshooting Questions

I am not aware that any sider drives were ever scsi; all the ones I've seen were SASI (Xebec 1410A bridge based)
The bridge firmware was modified to contain hard coded drive geometry, but that could be overcome with hidden option in the utility software (the front end UI of the software is written in Applesoft, break and look.) The down side of that is the system cannot boot from that drive. Replacing factory drive mechanism with aftermarket drive can be done, but the way that system is strung together. it cannot handle factory defect list.

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Re: SIDER II Terminator and Troubleshooting Questions

You are right all the internal actual drives were MFM with a "bridge" board but From what I have been reading(not sure where now as I have been to quite a few websites researching) Some of the Last Few Siders II's were SCSI on the controller side of the Bridge card.. not the usual SASI(an early form of SCSI) ,, some of the SASI's had 25 pin cables some 37..

Well I can't find the only ST-225 I had here.. Havn't seen it in 18 years so I will have to buy one.. Someone posted a Link where A person successfully replaced the Factory drive with a ST-225.. I will find out..

Mike

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Re: SIDER II Terminator and Troubleshooting Questions

Still stuck on the first Sider not Sider II (sorry!) but Here Is a Link to the manual for the original Sider Drive for sale on ebay. Thought perhaps it might help shed some light on your problem.
Zan

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Re: SIDER II Terminator and Troubleshooting Questions

and if you can help it, see if you can find a beefier replacement power supply. the cheap power supply xebec ships with the siders is just barely adequate for the subsystem. it was not uncommon to see units with blown power supplies.

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