Replacing a SCSI Drive--Problem

[Horrortaxi]

I'm replacing the hard drive on a PowerMac 7600 and I can't get the Mac to see the new drive. It's a Seagate ST15150N and it's got more jumpers than I've ever seen. None of them result in the Mac seeing the drive, however. I pulled up some data on the drive online and apparently I shouldn't even need to jumper it--but it works equally bad without a jumper. The drive spins up and it has OS 9.1 on it--so if the 7600 would see it I should be able to boot from it. If I boot from an install CD, the disk utility won't see the new drive either.

I've never dealt with SCSI drives before. Is there something basic I'm missing?

 

[bousozoku]

You should find two sets of jumpers which almost look as one. There should be one by itself, which is the terminating jumper. If you have no further SCSI devices, it should be covered by the little block.

The other should have at least one of the jumpers covered as the motherboard is SCSI address 0.

 

[Horrortaxi]

What I have looks like an upside down letter L. On the long part there are 11 pairs of posts. The short end is 3 pairs. there is no schematic on the drive and the one I got on the web wasn't too helpful. How does this description fit with what you're telling me?

Related subject, If I put an IDE controller in this 7600, would I be able to boot from an IDE drive? I'd rather use the SCSI though--I own that already.

 

[krimson]

iirc, the 7600 mobo, is similar to my powerbase, yeah, if you had a IDE drive, it should boot from that.

 

[bousozoku]

This should do more for you than I can not looking at the drive:

http://www.seagate.com/support/disc/scsi/st15150n.html

You can add an IDE controller to that system but booting from that drive in Mac OS 9.x will probably not work unless the drive has Apple ROMs.

krimson: The PowerBase motherboard was more like the Performa 6500 with the 603ev. The PowerMac 7600 was equivalent to the PowerCenter with no IDE/ATA on board.

 

[Horrortaxi]

Thanks for the link. Very odd. Yesterday I tried every possible jumper configuration and had no luck. Somewhere along the line with all the plugging and unplugging I started getting the death chime. I reseated the cables on all the drives and got it to boot. Since then (with no jumpers in place) I've been able to initalize the drive and install OS 8.5. I have a new appreciation for OS X now.

Thanks for all the help.

 

[bousozoku]

Glad you got it to work. That's a formidable drive.

 

[Horrortaxi]

By "formidable" I assume you mean "it's a mother." The thing weighs a few pounds and is twice as thick as any drive I've seen. It's a fast spinner though, and has good access time. 4GB--woo hoo. Because of that drive I'm now posting from an 8 year old Power Macintosh 7600--120mhz, 196MB, OS 8.6. It really doesn't feel that bad.

 

[bousozoku]

I think someone needs to go back to English class. Too much slang for you.

Barracuda drives were always just out of reach for me--somewhat a holy grail. They spun faster, had enormous transfer rates, and better than average seek times. The Mean Time Between Failures was even good for a drive so far out in front of the crowd.

I have a heavy duty Maxtor AV drive in my PowerCenter and it keeps that system moving quickly. It's a good drive, but it's not a Barracuda.