Drives supported by 72X8588 MCA card? (ESDI HARD DISK ATTACHMENT)

[nestor]

Hello,
I purchased long time ago a PS/2 model 80 that came with no hard drive, but it included the ESDI microchannel adapter ( P/N 72X8588 ). I read that ESDI drives are near extint nowadays... can I use this card with another type of drive? It has two cables like the MFM drives

 

[IBMMuseum]

Hello,
I purchased long time ago a PS/2 model 80 that came with no hard drive, but it included the ESDI microchannel adapter ( P/N 72X8588 ). I read that ESDI drives are near extint nowadays... can I use this card with another type of drive? It has two cables like the MFM drives

Only ESDI drives, but luckily not confined to just IBM: http://ibmmuseum.com/ohlandl/misc/ESDI.html#ESDI_HD_Attatch

 

[mikey99]

I think the IBM ESDI drives also contain information about bad sectors etc. which are
written on the hard drive in a special location. The reference diskette will try to read this
information during the configuration process.

I recall there is a patch available for the reference diskettes to allow using
the drives if they have been formatted on another controller or don't contain the bad
sector information.