Howdy!

I have two DTC Data Technology Corporation 6280-15T ISA disk controller
cards and older hard drives back in the MS-DOS 3.22 or so days.  In trying
to salvage some pure data files off these hard drives, I need to be able to
use one of these controllers in an ISA slot in a somewhat more modern
computer.  If at all possible, I want to mount this ISA disk controller
card as a supplemental disk controller card in a PII 200 Mhz box which is
totally running and current up to OS/2 MCP2 latest and hosting a complete
SCSI drive operating system.

The goal is to mount this ISA ST506 card such that it loads in behind the
'standard' OS/2 drive.  Since it is MS-DOS, I could then recover some very
old data files off it and simply copy them to the OS/2 current system hard
disk.

I've gotten almost there!  Just as it was originally inserted in the old
motherboard, I've gotten the motherboard to 'see' it for sure.  Reason
being is that if I actually enable a cboice of 'AUTO' for hard disk #1 in
the BIOS settings, I can actually get the box to lock down seeing the drive
which isn't able to actually boot this latest style box.  And never could
also go on to let me move data to a subservient LVM type OS/2 system even
if I could do that.

OK, now if I go into the BIOS and disable both IDE controllers on the
motherboard .. as well as turn off all the hard drive in the BIOS, I can,
indeed, boot to the OS/2 system.  But it doesn't 'see' the ST506 unit after
boot.  Despite that during the OS/2 boot run I actually can see the red
disk light in the ST506 hard drive wink at me as the OS/2 IBM1S506.ADD IDE
hard disk driver loads during the OS/2 boot run in CONFIG.SYS for OS/2.

And curiously, with this DTC 6280-15T ISA controller card in the slot and
enabled, post OS/2 boot run, the A: and B: floppy diskettes do not work in
OS/2 either, though they are 'found' in the boot run!

Sure.  The DTC 6280-15T controller card has a floppy diskette controller on
it as well, which, in theory can support four floppy diskettes.  As long as
we are talking 5-1/4" such creatures.  I've not yet tried to
substitute such a floppy, plus disable A: and B: floppies in the BIOS. That
might get this running.

As well, at this point since I can't boot to OS/2 from utility floppy
diskettes which will boot this box, with this controller card in there,I
have been able to utility boot the test box from an OS/2 MCP2 CD-ROM
install disk.  Which doesn't 'see' this ISA hard drive either.

OK .. I suspect that I could resolve the floppy interface error by
disabling the floppy interface on the DTC 6280-15T controller card with dip
switch setting changes.  As well, I just might be able to change the
interface for the ISA ST506 hard drive operation to a SLAVE instead of a
MASTER as it now surely must be.  That and possibly change the drive unit
number other than to the primary drive.

But I don't know what the setup dip switches do on this controller card.
Nor can I find any pictures or whatever doing a GOOGLE search for this.

Can anyone here tell me what the 10 switches in the dip switch unit do for
this DTC 6280-15T ISA controller card?

Thanks!


--> Sleep well; OS/2's still awake! ;)

Mike {at} 1:117/3001



--- Maximus/2 3.01