Attaching a ST-225 hard drive to a 486
Equipment:
![](https://i0.wp.com/mattfife.com/wp-content/themes/mattTheme/headerimgs/2024/06/20190917_160907-scaled-1-1024x576.jpg?resize=640%2C360&ssl=1)
![](https://i0.wp.com/mattfife.com/wp-content/themes/mattTheme/headerimgs/2024/06/s-l1600-1024x768.webp?resize=640%2C480&ssl=1)
![](https://i0.wp.com/mattfife.com/wp-content/themes/mattTheme/headerimgs/2024/06/mfm-rll-single-hard-drive-internal-flat-ribbon-cable-28.jpg?resize=500%2C311&ssl=1)
- Cables
- IEC.net has MFM and RLL cables. They can also custom make them for you.
- Interface board
- Remember that 8088 or XT based PC’s ran their ISA bus at 4.77mhz, AT ran at 6mhz, and 386 and beyond ran ISA at 8mhz (though many later ISA systems ran them at 10mhz since ISA is very forgiving and the higher clock speed gave better speeds). This means you may find old 8-bit or AT-based ISA cards won’t work in AT or 386/486 systems since the ISA bus runs too fast.
- List of common MFM and RLL hard drive controllers
- WD Model WD1006V-MM2 – 16bit – Manual
- Remember that
- Drive
- Seagate ST-225 manual
- ST-225 Geometry and quick reference guide (cyl: 615, heads: 4, Sectors: 17, precomp: 300, Landing: 670)
- AT power supplies
- Software preparation:
- USB 3.5″ floppy drive to write disks
- Greaseweazle with 3.5″ or 5.25″ floppy drive
Software
- DOS disks
- Low-level format tools
- Seagate Ontrack Disk Manager – Seagate OEM tool
- BIOS – many motherboards from the 386/486 era have a low-level format tool in BIOS
- SpeedStor – v6.0.3 , link 6.0.3, 6.5.0
- SpinRite
- debug (with -g=c800:5 command)
- Testing
- Tools
- RawWriteWin to write img files to USB attached floppy drives
Informational links:
- Reference site for a huge number of drive controllers
- Getting an MFM Hard Drive on Pentium II PC
- Old software on WinWorld: OS, apps, tools, games, etc