Projects/ataristharddrive
From 757Labs
Contents |
[edit] Overview
Our friend Jim loaned us a few computers made by Atari. One is known as a Mega 2 ST, and the other is a TT030. Both are somewhat rare, and we hope to have them on display at some events that we help run that allow the public to experience vintage computers.
The TT030 came from NASA Langley, and the hard drive no longer functioned electronically. It was disconnected and had been wiped, but wouldn't spin up either.
Not being a heavy Atari ST user, it took me a bit of work to figure out how you install a "new" hard drive in these old systems. To make it easier on others looking to do the same, I've documented the end result.
[edit] Hardware
I replaced the drive with a SCSI-II Quantum drive recovered from a Sun Sparcstation 2. I have not tried to go solid state with an ACard/Compact Flash yet, but it's a future plan.
[edit] Software
I had to download ahdi6061.zip. You can find the LZH copy at http://www.umich.edu/~archive/atari/Diskutils/, or I found a zipped copy at http://www.dilgar.de/ahdi6061.zip .
[edit] Setup
The hard drive seems to need to be at SCSI ID 0 in order to boot. With the drive set to ID 6, the format completed but the boot utilities wouldn't seem to install. It just kept throwing some error.
In my case I formatted a high density disk on the Atari TT030. It formatted to ~720K. So I taped over the high density hole on the disk and carried it to the PC. Unlike the Amiga, Apple IIGS and early Macintosh it's no big deal to move files between a PC and the Atari. From the PC I was able to copy the unzipped contents of the ahdi6061.zip utility package onto the disk and bring it back to the Atari ST TT030.
After booting the Atari TT030, hdx allows you to format the drive and it will create a partition.
From here hinstall copies something to the drive to make it bootable.
After this is done, rebooting the machine should get you to where you have the hard drive on the desktop.
