Re: A hard drive problem

[shack@deimos.frii.com (Randy Shackelford)]

In article <5mkecp$15bk@enzu.unm.edu>, Jim Pittman <casa@unm.edu> wrote:
>I have a hard drive problem.

[snip]

>Well, in cleaning out the dust the blue wire came loose! I took out
>four screws holding the drive to the chassis so I could look to see
>where the wire had been connected. The only places I could see that
>could possibly accommodate the tiny female connector on the end of
>the blue wire were pins on two tiny connectors at the end of the
>Quantum motherboard. One connector had two pins, the other had five.
>There were no meaningful identifying markings on the connectors that
>I could see; it said something like "J5" and "J12" or whatever.
>
>Now what? 1) try the hard drive with the blue wire loose? 2) try
>the drive with the wire attached to one of these pins? If so,
>which pin? 3) Look for another possible place the wire could have
>been attached? I simply can not find any other place.

That'd be one of the ID selector wires. It should plug into the row of three
ID select pins (labeled A0, A1, and A2) nearest the edge of the controller 
card, assuming you're talking a Quantum LPS drive. One row of ID select pins 
has a wire for each pin, normally black, yellow, and red, and the blue wire
connects to the common row of pins. It's a trial-and-error process to make
sure the ID wires are connected correctly. It involves setting the ID selector
to each value and making sure the drive reports the same ID. If not, you have
to power down the drive and try again. This is easy on a Mac since they are
very forgiving about turning SCSI devices on and off, plus there are a lot
of programs which can scan the bus for SCSI IDs. On a II it may not be so
easy. My IIgs with HS SCSI wants all devices either on or off. So it might
take a reboot between tries.

Disclaimer: this is from my experience in swapping Quantum drives into 
enclosures from several different companies. Your mileage may vary.
-- 
Randy Shackelford                                 
shack@frii.com