Yuppie XT-FD2

Posted by Floppy010@reddit | vintagecomputing | View on Reddit | 4 comments

I recently revived a Yuppie XT-FD2 from 1988 after about 25 years in storage.

I’m looking for information about the hard drive that came with it.

When powering Yuppie on, several tantalum capacitors on the HDD controller board exploded. I replaced all tantalum capacitors with electrolytic capacitors of the same capacitance values (higher voltage ratings). This removed the short circuit and the PC now powers on normally.

However, the drive still does not spin up at all.

What I checked so far:

- spindle motor coils all measure about 4.7 ohms

- about 6V measured on the spindle motor lines during startup

- no components are getting excessively hot

- platter rotates freely by hand

- head positioning motor also moves freely by hand

The drive remains completely silent during power-up: no spin attempt, vibration, clicking, or actuator movement.

Does anyone recognize this drive or have experience troubleshooting these older HDDs?

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Specialist_Heron4446@reddit

It may have a ST225 in it, they are probably all long in the tooth by now. or a Connor, if I remember correctly some of the early Connor drives wouldnt spin up immediately. Geez, so many years ago. Open that puppy up, lets have a squizz.

CoolBlackSmith75@reddit

Rll schijven die poef zeggen. Succes.

Tall-Introduction414@reddit

I know this doesn't answer your question, and it might not be what you're after at all, But.... you might consider just getting an XT IDE Universal BIOS card and 2GB Compact Flash card to replace the HDD and HDD controller. Something like Lo-tech XT-CF-lite rev.2 or Lo-tech ISA XT CF Adapter rev. 3.

Floppy010@reddit (OP)

Thanks! That’s a great fallback option if I can’t get the original drive working. I’d really like to repair and keep the original HDD if possible, but at this point I honestly have no idea where to continue troubleshooting. The symptoms are pretty strange given the measurements so far.