Re: Corvus HD replacement question

["Paul Grammens" <grammens@svn.net>]

Ernest <ernestls@home.com> wrote in message
news:vy5x5.90494$Ur3.1082362@news1.sttls1.wa.home.com...
> What type of HD does the big white external Corvus drive use? SCSI? SASI?
> IDE? The reason that I'm asking is that a guy that I know has one but the
HD
> seems to be dead, and he offered it to me but I'm not sure if I want to
take
> it if I can't find a HD to use with it. I haven't seen it, or tested it
yet
> but it has the controller card and cable.
>
> Are there other HDs that will work in this case?
>

You could always look inside for the manufacturer and model information.
What was pretty common is taking an mfm drive and attaching it to some other
interface.
Even some of the 3rd party SCSI drives for the Mac Plus used common mfm
drives attached to a SCSI interface.

Also, it's quite common for old drives to develop stiction from sitting.
Turn it on and listen for the sound of the drive spinning up. If it doesn't
spin up, good chance that it's just stiction (of course, it could be just
plain dead...).

The way I deal with that is to use the inertia of the platters to try and
break them loose: remove the drive, grab it and give it a pop with your
wrist. Then connect the power and see if it will spin up. I've heard of
people pounding on the drive, I wouldn't recommend that...

And please don't convert it to something else, surely it's worth a lot more
broken with some hope of repair than it would be converted to a common SCSI
drive.
-Paul