Re: Fix a Sider???

[jesse@dino.gi.alaska.edu (Jesse P. Atencio)]

> John D. Baker said:
> What no one has grasped yet is that the actual _mechanism_ is an MFM hard
> disk.  The Sider has a hard disk controller board in it that provides the
> SASI interface to the MFM drive.  It's most likely a Xebec S1410.
> 
> MFM hard disks can be had for cheap.  Any drive will do as long as it has
> _at least_ as many cylinders and heads as the old drive.  One caveat,
> though.  You should generally avoid any drive which declares that it
> is/has "wedge servo" since not many SASI controllers could deal with
> those drives (the Xebec 1410 being one of them).

Right, in my experience most of them were Xebec drives.  Only problem was
that the cable connector was the 50 pin single connector style while the
common MFM hard drives have two separate connectors so I don't think that
it will be possible to replace unless one has the actual mechanism
repaired.  I believe that Sider hard drives later came out with a Sider II
drive which I am not familiar with, it may have used the common MFM
mechanisms.

Hope this info helps out.

Jesse Atencio