help with 3.5 system please

[p035631b@pb.seflin.org (Joe Cairnes)]

I believe that different drives have different capabilities and that the
controlling electronics are sometimes on the interface card and somtimes in
the drive.  This leads to three broad questions about my system.

First, how should the following three 3.5" drives and two cards work in
//e's?:

McD-800 3.5" Mac Compatible Floppy Disk Drive from PKI, INC

hsi HabaDisk Mac from SHUGART VENTURE

Apple 3.5 Drive Model No. A9M0106


VTECH card numbered 35-2424-00
                    702283A
with two permanently attached cables which end with DB19 male connectors

I/O CONTROLLER from apple computer with one permanently attached cable
which ends with a DB19 male connector.


I recall that the McD and VTECH worked together briefly after I got them a
year or so ago, but some part of the system has since crashed.

It seemed to me that the I/O CONTROLLER would not be useful for driving the
disks, but the ProDOS users disk identified it as a drive interface.  It
reports the presence of the VTECH card but does not identify it.



Second, given the following symptoms, what seems wrong with whatever should
work?  Attempts to use McD result in the software reporting something
wrong.  Attempts to use  HabaDisk result in the drive's red light coming on
and it sounding like it is spining, but software reporting something wrong.
Attempts to use A9M0106 result in the drive's red light coming on and a
dull sound which does not sound like spining, and software reporting
something wrong.



Third, if the cores of some one of these particular drives is bad can it be
replaced by a central core (labeled Sony) from an 800K external Apple
drive?