Hallo,
i'm trying to recover my data from a Quantum LPS 52S harddisk (52MB Scsi, ~1990). There's a picture of the controller pcb and a video showing it running on amiga hardware attached.

If i connect it to my LSI PC SCSI controller (Dawicontrol DC-2980) the harddisk will be found but needs some more seconds (i think) until the boot process continues. The drive is not accessible in windows or linux (ddrescue, syslog->drive unknown/not ready). The SCSI dos maintenance utility of my LSI controller shows no geometry data (CHS) of the drive (and 'medium inaccessible' as well).

You will notice some damaged tracks on the picture (upright corner). Once there were some overlong screws attached to the drive. I fixed it as good as i could and the drive worked flawlessly after that for months. I checked connections and its still properly connected today (0 Ohm). It just looks broken on the pic because one thin metal line is bent down a little bit. Its not cut or shorted.

Now i want to try swapping the HDDs pcb by a new/different one (maybe its damaged otherwise). I just found LPS 52AT devices yet. Are these compatible IDE versions for that scsi drive? Can i swap the pcb permanently or do i have to do it "live"?

Any other ideas what i could try?
Can anyone help me out with a spare/replacement drive (LPS 52S) or the attached controller?



This is the scsi maintenance utility showing wrong CHS values. Correct values should be '49MB, 1219 cyl, 2 head, 41 sec, 512 bytes/sec' i think.

Swap it
Most likely it will work
you don't need to do it "live"

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Ok, i've got the LPS 52AT drive and swapped the pcb. Now its an IDE drive.
But when i connect it to my nForce2 (AMD XP 3200+) IDE controller the harddisk won't get detected (the original IDE drive behaves the same - not detected). I even entered CHS values directly (CHS 751/8/17). These values are written on the harddisk itself from the previous owner and seem to be the same 'logical values' like stated here (Dell). I left 'Precomp' and 'Landing Zone' untouched to '0'.

I tested PowerMax (Maxtor/Quantum dos diagnose tool). It does detect the drive and even shows the name (LPS52S) and passes some tests (power, jumper,..) but fails on 'bios extension', calibration and all further tests. CHS values are shown as 0,0,0. At least it gets some informations. My bios shows nothing at all, just 'harddisk detection failed'.

Same with mhdd. The only working command is 'Init' that will reset the drive but fails afterwards with 'drive not responding or operation canceled'. The drive was connected as single drive with 'master jumper' (DS) on idebus2 with 80pin IDE cable. Idebus1 holds dvd-roms and was locked by mhdd.

So, both drives with both controllers (SCSI,IDE) and/or swapped PCBs behave the same. They do not respond and time out. Looks like both drives/PCBs are broken or they don't run on my hardware.

The PowerMax readme tells that it only supports drives above 500MB. Is it possible that those old drives don't work on modern systems at all? Maybe some timings too fast or something like that. I've read that IDE in general should be backwards compatible but i'm not sure how this affects such really old devices. They were never meant to be connected to such modern systems. I will try to find some slower/older systems.

Any other ideas?

I guess you have tons of data on your drive, which is very important to you.
I hope you did not loose all family photos or a video collection.

I am willing to donate 10GB drive for you, if you will pay for a shipping, it is 200 times biger drive.


What could you possibly store on that drive?
Did you really think that hard drive will serve over 18 years without a problem?

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You need the data or the drive in amiga format? I can recover it, but it's not worth the price and shipping. I have solutions to deliver, not ideas to share.

It holds some personal amiga stuff. Its not that critical but it would be great if i could get it. Its a low density drive. Chances are higher than todays 320GB platters i think.

The heads are not moving at all (beside calibration and initialization) but read errors would look different i think. I still bet on hardware incompatibility/controller problem. I've found another person with a 3rd drive of that kind. Shouldn't harm to get that as well.

@BlackST:
I need just the data from the drive not the drive itself. I have an amiga 500 with evolution controller but it doesn't work anymore. I'm not sure why. Symptoms are shown in the video on the first post. The HDD won't get detected there as well. Could be an amiga problem since contacts may be worn out.

I know exactly what is you drive problem, need to confirm by analyzing the firmware on the platter, not on the pcb. Everything is possible. I still have many of them in stock, as well as ST125, ST250, Conner...

Hi,

I think, this drive have no or a really minimal part of the FW on the platter.
So, replacing the PCB with another model, not necessary will work.
i suggest to:

1. measure the heads first! (need scope)
2. replace the components from the pcb
3. replace the pcb with the same one, and replace the EPROM as well

Regards,
Janos

@BlackST:
So, what's on your mind.. what do you think is or could be wrong?

@N.C.:
I think the eeprom is ok. It shows the name of the drive in powermax.

No, i have suggested, because the EPROM has the unique part of the FW, if this drive have at all this.
(exchange the EPROM, if it is more clear)

Janos

I don't think i can swap it. One eprom is not conventionally soldered, more glued and pressed (shorter feet). Reflashing the other one may be easier.

But i'll try to get a working drive first.

Some firmware and err lists are on the platters !!

May be.. but if the HDD couldn't read it properly shouldn't it rattle all the time?

I think the spare drives pcb is broken as well since there are ppl on google that successfully booted such drives properly on recent systems. The spare drive itself wasn't working at the time it arrived here. I will get a second spare drive/pcb to make sure.

Aren't you wasting money and time?

I've got to try at least the options i've got in range. If its not the pcb i'm out of options anyway.