HP 4145B on life support...organ donor urgenlty needed

On a 3.5"? The only one I know like that is the Brother sewing machine drive - 90K and later 180K IIRC.

They sell for mucho $$$ on eBay.

Sounds like the early HP 150 style used with their pre-Mac / early PC era computers (early 1980s).

As I remember, these were made for HP by or with Sony.

gb

On Tue, 12 Sep 2006 18:37:54 +0200, Fred Bartoli put finger to keyboard and composed:

If it will help you, I can scan the 360KB and 1.2MB FDD circuits from the original IBM PC AT Tech Ref manual. The manual also has the circuit for the HDD/FDD adapter, as well as a basic command reference.

- Franc Zabkar

Phil,

I'd definitely ask in the hp_agilent_equipment discussion group, at

. I'd also ask in the TekScopes group, there (with a polite apology for being OT), since that group is older and better-established and has some "extremely*-knowledgable people who frequent it.

If you wanted to find an identical, used unit, or several at once, possibly dirt-cheap, and anywhere from "unused" to DOA with no foolproof way of knowing before you bid, you'd start scanning

, and hope that any available ones are within a half-day's drive, or (especially if you're not in the USA and not near one of their foreign sites) that someone you know can pick them up and ship them to you. I think the minimum bid has been raised to $45. But that might be for more than one unit, depending on which site they're at and which warehouse manager makes up the lots. (Or, of course, they may not be dumping many/any of those, at this time.)

Other possibilities include

(go to My Ebay and initiate an "auto-search", or whatever they call it, so you'll be automatically emailed whenever anything matching your search comes up for auction), and, as a long-shot, periodically check .

Another pretty-good possibility:

If you can get the official HP part number off of the drive, someone with several gigabytes of downloaded HP service manuals (e.g. me) could automatically search all of the PDF files and, with any luck, give you a partial list of other HP equipment that used the identical part, so that you might have an easier time finding another unit from which to scavenge one.

You could also check for service manual(s) at places like

, and at . And there is a (more-or-less) searchable archive of MANY complete older test-equipment catalogs, in the Reference Library section, at where you might be able to get some clues about what equipment used that drive.

And yet-another possibility:

If you have the HP part number of the drive, someone with the Federal Logistics (FedLog) database (e.g. me) could check to see if there is any cross-reference information, possibly with the original supplier's or manufacturer's name, and their part number. (Chances might be slim, in this case. But if it has any info at all, it'll probably have more than you want to know.)

I'd be happy to do those two searches (i.e. PDF HP manuals and Fedlog database) for you, if you post (or email me) the HP part number (My email address is tomg at fullnet.com .). If possible, also include ALL other indentifying info that might be on the drive, and on its PCB.

Good luck!

- Tom Gootee

"He who lives in a glass house" should not invite "he who is without sin".

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Thanks, guys. That gives me some leads. Also, a kind lurker of this group who happens also to work at IBM offered to send me a *brand new spare*. When that shows up, I'll probably be good for a few more years.

Cheers,

Phil Hobbs