#PowerComputing HD Drive
17 messages in this thread
I just purchased the new Power Computing XL Drive for my 1200. This
is the long awaited HD external drive for the Amiga. The manual does
not describe, BTW, two aspect of the drive and I am wondering what
they do…
1. There is a switch on the back of the drive that says 0 or 1. I am
assuming that this is for DF0: or DF1:. However, this does not make
sense to me because the Amiga auto-mounts all external drives in
order. Since there is alway an internal drive, why would you want it
set to DF0: and, what would happen if I set it to 0? Would the
internal drive be DF1:?
2. There is a hole right beside the switch that says AOB. I'm totally
clueless on what this does.
I know this is a new drive and probably not many people have them but
any help would be appreciated as it will save me an international
call.
A lot of the 3rd party external floppies have a switch to disable
them, saving the RAM needed to mount them. There's an annoying
practice these days of labeling switches "0" and "1" where "Off" and
"ON" would be more appropriate. I'd guess it's set to 1 now, and if
you flipped it to 0 then rebooted, it would disappear – but the
available RAM would iincrease. No guess on the AOB… "Amiga or
Bust?" 🙂
Jim,
Good guess… I bet you're right about the 0-1… thanks for the help.
Jonathan Schmidt – On AutoPilot from CompuServe Land
Jon…
Congrats on the new drive. Can you tell me how it works. Does it emulate
(totally) the Commodore HD drive if used on an A3000 with DOS 2.1? With
CrossDOS does it work as a 1.4 meg drive. With AMAX and EMPLANT does it work
as a HD drive? I really need a high density drive that works with all the
above and hope this is the solution.
Also does anybody know if the A2000 HD drive works in the A3000, since I see it
advertised?
Thanks-
..Carl
Carl,
It is supposed to work with all of the different disks out there. I can't
be sure about the Mac emulation since I don't have AMAX or Emplant but the
DOS emulation is perfect so far. The only problem I'm having is trying to
get QuarterBack to recognize it as a HD drive. I think that is QB's
fault, though. It's a lot of money but if you need HD in an external, it
is worth it…
Jonathan Schmidt – On AutoPilot from CompuServe Land
PMFJI,
One thing I noticed when I had a HD floppy drive in my A3000 was that for
Quarterback to recognize it as a HD floppy, I had to have a formatted
Amiga HD floppy in the drive when I first invoked QB. Otherwise, it would
just assume it was LoD.
Hope this helps,
Erik Flom
Erik,
Yeah, I talked with Horizon and they had me change a couple of things.
I'm still not sure that it is recognizing the HD drive all the time but
for the most part, it seems to be working. One backup, it wanted 4 disks
for LD and 2 for HD. However, on the first HD disk, it only put 1.5M on
it… I'm not sure why. Thanks for the input, though!
Jonathan Schmidt – On AutoPilot from CompuServe Land
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Jonathan…
Thanks for the encouraging info. How much did you pay for it and where did you
get it?
..Carl
Carl,
Well, that was the ouchie part… I paid $180 for it but I traded in my
1011 drive and got $40 off so I paid $140… not too bad considering that
I've had my LD drive for a while and have certainly got my use out of it.
I bought it from my local dealer here in Columbus, Ohio, CompuQuick Media
Center. I'm sure you can get it mail order, though from any number of
places that advertise in Amiga World. The only trouble is, if you have a
drive to trade in, you are out of luck. Justcheck with your dealer and
they can order one. It took about 2 weeks (including the Thanksgiving
holiday) to get mine in.
Jonathan Schmidt – On AutoPilot from CompuServe Land
Jonathan…
Thanks for the follow-up. I really need one so I guess I'll investigate the
possibilities here. That isn't cheap but then it is better th than doing
without.
..Carl
You are right there! I just backed up my HD on HD disks and I fit 57 MB on 23
disks!
Jon
Yeah I don't even backup because It would take too many disks and time. I need
a Syquest in addition to a couple of the high density drives. Oh well it is
only money :^(.
..Carl
Carl,
Before you get serious on Suquests, check out 3.5" 128 MO. Much cheaper
than Syquest in the long run. You can pick up a unit that iell mount
internally or get one in an external case, usually bundled with 3 to 5
peices of media for under $1000. After that the media is between $35 and
$45 per disk with prices continuing to edge down. These Fuji 2511A units
are bout the same speed on reads and half the speed on writes of a typical
removable HD. More convenient to work with and more durable.
wmc – via Autopilot!
Good suggestion but my biggest problem is moving around my digitized
images. We have syguests at work where the digitizers are and the
shop that can print my images on an XL7720 also uses syquest soooo.
Carl, Your kinda stuck. Hopefully more and more places will ad the
3.5 MO to their peripheral lists as they do have a physical storage,
handling and cost advantage.
wmc – via Autopilot!
Wayne, are the MO disks a sealed unit? (can't contaminate the guts?)
73, Kelly
Kelly, They are just like 3.5" disks, shutter and all, buy about
twice as thick (5 to a box instead of 10, but most places sell them
singley in alittle plastic case.)