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Wanted: 286 or 386 PC


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I have a small predicament here.

 

I had a computer back in the early 90's called a NEC Powermate APC IV (4) which was a 386/16 with a 140 meg hard drive that was using either the ESDI or MFM format. It was a 2 ribbon cable arrangement, one large and one small, and they plugged onto the end of a PCB in the hard drive, much like a jamma harness only smaller.

 

This computer had a 5&1/4" floppy disk that had the system bios on it, so to get into the settings to set up the hard drive you needed to boot the program off the floppy disk. I suspect that most of this computer was a proprietry setup and can't be chopped and changed with generic brand machines.

 

This drive contains my family tree and a whole stack of my HSC music compositions so the data is valuable to me.

 

The power supply in this computer karked it so I ripped the drive controller card and hard drive, thinking that one day i'd get around to hooking it up to another computer (assuming that hard drive standards, connections, etc would never change.. Ha!)

 

Anyway. Here I am 15 years on, and I really want to retrieve this data now. The family tree contains data and interviews on now-gone relatives and I am having a lot of trouble finding an old computer that is capable of firing up this old drive.

 

I am in Sydney, will pay money for the computer, pick it up, pay postage costs, etc. But I'd like to attempt the retrieval myself, rather than give the drive out to people to have a crack at it.

 

Failing this, I would be prepared to send the drive to a *REPUTABLE* drive recovery lab and pay to have it done, as a last resort of course... I have priced it and they tend to wave figures of high hundreds to "couple of grand if we gotta rebuild the drive"... So i'd rather try and buy some old PCs first. :)

 

Anyone had any experience with these kind of labs, recommendations??

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Hi Biggeorge,

I haven't seen a APC IV for years. I think the safest way to retrieve the data would be to find another APC IV. It might take a while but NEC made heaps of these so there should be some out there. Possibly try ebay.com in the US also. As you mentioned, with the old drives you had to pick the correct type in Bios to match the number of heads, tracks, landing zone. If you pick the wrong type in Bios you could loose the data. If you google the the drive and controller models this should give you the drive specs to try to check against the Bios models. The ESDI drives had their own Bios so I don't think you need to pick the drive type if yours is ESDI and not ST506 MFM.

 

I do know a few schools which used some data recovery companies and this cost about $2000-$3000.

 

Have you worked out how to get the data off the drive once it is running again? What was OS was on the old drive? Dos 6 & Windows 3.1?

 

Regards Derek

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Derek, sounds like you're speaking my language.

 

You're right about the configuration bit. I remember distinctly that when you got into the bios it was the highest drive size on the pre-configured list for that particular computer.

 

And yes, the easiest way is to grab hold of an identical one, set it up the same way, flick the switch and pray!

 

I've been told by so many wannabe geeks that all I gotta do is stick the controller card into anything with an ISA slot and fire it up, but it just isn't true. I really think I need the same computer model or very similar, ie. from the same range/vintage of NEC.

 

It ran on DOS 6.2 at the time. Once I get into it, I can get the stuff off it no problem. Laplink is my best bet but if it came to the crunch i'd be prepared to sit and pick thru the files, copying them to disks one by one.

 

I don't even know if it was ESDI or MFM.

There are a gazillion dip switches on the bottom as well, so there are so many ways this could go wrong if I were to just hand the drive over to somebody else.

 

I have seen a few of these NECs on ebay in the US, but I dread the thought of what postage would cost me...

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Could you just source a APC IV motherboard? Do you remember if it just used a standard AT PSU? I have a PS2/AT keyboard, video board, and PSU you could borrow to get it running.

 

To ship a arcade PCB from the US is about $40-$50 so hopefully it would be too expensive.

 

Laplink sound the way to go. I use to use a similar product Fastlynx.

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  • Administrators

George, I have an Amstrad 386 in working order, You're welcome to give it a go if you think it is worth a look. Located in Seven Hill, just down the road.

PM if interested.

Dave.

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This has really made my day...

 

Derek, There are a few hovering around ebay USA but none of them can be buggered posting it or even getting quotes. So scratch that.

 

Furball, I put out the call on freecycle and scored a few promising hits, one dude even said he had a 286 version of the APC-4 which is so damn close to what I need I nearly pissed my pants. I got a few other offers so I guess I will grab all I can locally and I think I may be able to knock something together, BUT... If you could just flip open the case and take a look at the hard drive cables, if there's 2 data cables that slip over the circuit board on the drive (jamma style) then you have what I want. PM me your phone number.

 

Alien, I am thinking MFM as well, but some ppl tell me it's ESDI. I always thought it was MFM myself..

If I fail at my attempts can I mail you the drive and share the postage costs with you and get this thing revived???....

IF the drive is slightly damaged from say, a head crash, can this mob repair it before pulling the data off it.

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I was down at this guys place this week in Melbourne he has old Pcs to the roof .

Hes name is Michael 039 750 5740 Mobile 0401614902 Beyond Waste Recycling.

 

 

See how you go he might just post the mother board if he has one .

If he dosnt post I might be able to help with the posting not far from me.

 

Cheers

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Alien, I am thinking MFM as well, but some ppl tell me it's ESDI. I always thought it was MFM myself..

If I fail at my attempts can I mail you the drive and share the postage costs with you and get this thing revived???....

IF the drive is slightly damaged from say, a head crash, can this mob repair it before pulling the data off it.

 

if you want to later on the down track.

i have not got my hdds out of storage yet. wont be able to get in to it till later this year. dont stress.

when the time comes by all means we can do this

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If the drive didn't have a separate controller card, it is an mfm drive and any computer 286up, with a programable bios will accept it[you need a 16 bti mfm controllercard but], but must get orig cyls,hds, sector per track accurate or you wont get it to work. If the apc4 had a pripority esdi controller card, and you didnt keep it, probably be very hard to get it readable again, they tended to be set to the card. My memory thinks they were mfm drives originally
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If the drive didn't have a separate controller card, it is an mfm drive and any computer 286up, with a programable bios will accept it[you need a 16 bti mfm controllercard but], but must get orig cyls,hds, sector per track accurate or you wont get it to work. If the apc4 had a pripority esdi controller card, and you didnt keep it, probably be very hard to get it readable again, they tended to be set to the card. My memory thinks they were mfm drives originally

 

mfm and rll drives were very similar

 

they can be recovered though i assure you

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