by tezza on Tue Apr 19, 2011 4:16 pm
I'm not an expert on the Model III, but I'm pretty sure it's not as easy as just hooking up any old 5.25 inch drive.
I know for the Model 1 you could mix drives of track number and heads (single sided vrs double sided) but the DOS usually had to be told what type of drive was occupying that particular drive number. Some DOSes could only handle a particular type of drive.
The stock Model III came with 40 track, single sided drives. You MAY have to tweak the DOS for it to recognise anything else. I say MAY because I don't know too much about LDOS or some of the Model III DOSes. They may detect what you've got. I guess what I'm saying is it would be worth doing some research on it. I suspect it's not just plug-and-play.
To my knowledge, half-height 80 track, double sided drives can be used on a Model I/III but only at 300 rpm. At 360 rpm they become 1.2 MB PC drives. Some of these drives have a jumper allowing a speed change, but many are just set at 360.
What track number and head number (one side or two) are your existing Model III drives?