$fa8|1- Eyetech 3.5" Drives



$aa4                          By Sorcerer/Wildfire
$89f
Thinking of buying an 3.5" Hard Drive but to scared to fit it?  This was
my  problem  until I was hunting through the mags for cheap hard drives,
but  then I came across Eyetechs advert for Ultra Slime IDE Hard Drives.
So  not  having  much  money  I went for the cheapest size available the
630mb  one,  a  quick  ring  to  Eyetech later and I was told that I was
purchasing  one  of  the last remaining hard drives of this size EVER, I
was  also  told that the 630mb one needs a few modifications to my Amiga
as it is slightly bigger then the ones over a Gig in size.

After  about  an hour of deciding I thought, yes why not, if I bugger up
the  Amiga  I  can  just  use  my spare A1200 :).  Anyway I sent off the
cheque  and  about 3 days later there it was, a Seagate 630mb ultra slim
hard  drive.   I  immediatly  tore  open the wrapping and pulled out the
instructions.   They  told  me  that I would need a Hand Drill, and some
other bits and pieces such as selotape and tin foil???!?

I  suddenly  realised  that  this  may not be quite the job I thought it
would  be,  but  what  choice did I have?  Either leave it in the box or
attempt  a  bit  of DIY.  I Started by earthing myself with the supplied
wire  and put my Amiga on a flat table (after removing my Blizzard 68030
Accelerator)  and  unscrewed  the screws and invalidated the warrenty by
removing  that  little  sticker over one of the screws.  I eased the lid
off  and  wedged  it by the edge of my now opened Amiga.  I asked myself
looking  into  the  void of nothingness that was in my Amiga "Theres not
much  to  this  computer"  but soon realised that it was all hidden away
under  the shielding, so therewas no way I could damage it (hurah!).  So
all  you  really  have  to do is unplug a few things, and rearrange some
wiring  and  plugs  that  they  supply  you  to  get  the  Hard Disk LED
connected,  and  power  etc.   Snip  a  tiny bit of sticky out shielding
(Hardest  Bit),  drill  2  holes in the plastic casing to screw the hard
drive  into  the  relivant  position.   Remove the old 2.5" drive cradle
(this just pulls out) and put it all back together.  So you may ask, did
I  have  any  problems  well  yes  but after a quick phonecall or two to
Eyetech  these  were  easily solved thanks to their helpfull staff.  The
drive  comes  with  everything  you need, such as screws and the correct
cables  and  even  sticky  pads.  No soldering is required and you don't
even need to touch any chips.

The  Eyetech drive comes with a load of PD and if you get one of the gig
Hard  Drives  you  get  free MMExperience, but mine being 630MB I didn't
<Sob>,  still  it comes with music modules, Pictures, even the old Amiga
CD32 advert digitised where some alien thingy pops up and starts playing
Microcism.  This in itself is 18 MEG+ in size.  You also get a digitised
anim  +  sound  of  someone at Eyetech congratulating you on fitting the
drive?!?!

My  drive  is now running with a Blizzard accelerator and 4 MEGS of Fast
Ram with the same Commodore Supplied PSU perfectly well and it has a SYS
info reading of 2.5 MEGS a second in speed.

Overall  I would tell anyone who hasn't got a hard drive to get one now,
even if it means getting a 3.5" one and fitting it yourself as they make
the world of difference.  Workbench boots in a few seconds, no more disk
swapping,  extra  fast  loading  times  etc.  etc.  etc.  etc.etc.  etc.
Overall Rating 9/10


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