Re: WTB (Australia): internal hard drive

[dalloff@freenet.columbus.oh.us (Dave Althoff)]

Chris McConnell (cmcconne@ozemail.com.au) wrote:
: hello
:  
: id like to aquire an internal hard drive to use with my 2gs.
: thanks

: chris

Hello!  I have two suggestions.

SUGGESTION #1:  Contact Alltech Electronics (http://www.allelec.com)
regarding the Focus internal hard drive.  If you don't plan on connecting
additional SCSI hardware, it is a quite an elegant solution, with minimal
hardware hacking required.

SUGGESTION #2:  Obtain a SCSI card (such as the RAMFast, about which I
know almost nothing, or the Apple High Speed SCSI, which I understand is
discontinued) and an internal SCSI hard drive.  Then begin doing some
hardware hacking...

a)  Find a space for the drive inside your machine.  For my IIgs, this was
easy as I had the Applied Engineering "Vulcan" drive/power supply, so I
just mounted the drive in the Vulcan case.  For my //e, I actually got a
couple of PC board stand-offs and mounted my old Vulcan drive mechanism
under the keyboard.

b)  Construct (or have constructed) a cable to run from the DB-25
connector on the SCSI card to the 50-pin connector on the disk drive.  I
suggest installing an additional DB-25 connector and attaching that to the
backplane of the machine in case you decide you want another SCSI drive.

c)  Connect a power supply lead from the motherboard of the computer to
the disk drive.  On my //e, I connected the power supply leads directly to
the motherboard instead of hacking the power supply cable...that way, when
I upgraded the power supply, all I had to do was plug the new one in...no
mucking about with adapting the leads on the new supply.

ANOTHER OPTION WHICH MIGHT SIMPLIFY THINGS:
The standard GS power supply is a wee bit wimpy.  You might consider
contacting Steve Buggie and getting one of his external power supplies (PC
power supply with the GS power lead attached).  Since those supplies are
custom-modified, he could probably build you one with both a motherboard
power connector and a drive power connector.  Also, moving the power
supply outside leaves you with a nice big chunk of real estate in which to
mount your hard drive.  Of course, this would mean an external power
supply, and if you are going to do that, you might be just as well off to
use an external HD...

Note:  Because I have the AE power supply in my GS, I haven't bought one
from Buggie.  That suggestion is based on ongoing recommendations of other
c.s.a2 readers.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.
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