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How To Put a Hard Disk in The Citadel Infostation
The flash in my unit was only 1M (although some units apparently had the second flash chip installed).
I found this limiting in my application. There appeared to be enough space for a laptop drive and the unit has
what appeared to be a 2mm type connector. Small 2.5" hard disks using only 500 ma or so of power are available
on Ebay or www.computergeeks.com for very little expense. I purchased a new 344 MB IBM drive for $15 shipped. I
got a used 200+M Seagate for only $8.50.
What is tricky, is that these cables are very hard to come by, particularly those of any significant length. So,
I purchased enough supplies (a minimum purchase) to make some. Looking more closely at the Citadel CPU board,
the connector was 50 pin. So, after a little digging, I determined that if you cut off two pins from the connector,
the 44 pin cable can then connect.
Not so obvious is the keying for laptop drives. Although the drives seem to be keyed the Citadel connector is not, and I've never seen a laptop cable keyed. So, after a little digging, I determined that the drive seems to get +5 power from pins on the RIGHT as you look at the picture above.
Drives that I have at my disposal have this power as below:
So, bottom line is, you MUST hook up the cable properly or the power supply, cable,
drive, or CPU will probably be damaged!!!
So, pay attention!!!!!
I installed the drive upside down (probably not recommended, but it works) by screwing the side of the drive to
the flange for the rear, and with the drive laying down on the bottom of the unit. Flat head type screws did not
seem to make reassembly more difficult but be aware that this probably compromises the "waterproofing"
of the unit. About 1.5 feet of cable seemed to be OK (I have other things in my Citadel that take up more space
above the CPU). Setting up the Citadel with the usual BIOS setup worked well, and my units had a "user definable"
type drive.
A tip: if you have a drive with lots of bad sectors including in the boot area, it is sometimes possible to make a smaller disk by defining less heads in the BIOS. I rescued a junk drive this way.
I have some remaining cable supplies and I can provide them for a small cost as my supplies permit. Email me at
slboykonospam@yahoo.com (without the nospam part).