Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-lcc!mordor!joyce!ames!nrl-cmf!ukma!rutgers!iuvax!bkliewer From: bkliewer@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu (Bradley Dyck Kliewer) Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc Subject: Re: Hard drive / controller problems Message-ID: <10657@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu> Date: 15 Jul 88 04:56:18 GMT References: <222@psuhcx.psu.edu> <16800327@clio> <230@psuhcx.psu.edu> <4452@sphinx.uchicago.edu> Reply-To: bkliewer@iuvax.UUCP (Bradley Dyck Kliewer) Organization: Indiana University CSCI, Bloomington Lines: 31 >controller. I was also using a cable with a twist between the >connection for drive c and d (or a and b, as the case probably was). >the controller could talk to one drive, or the other, but never both >at once. I called Everex (who, for some reason known only to them had >marketed the WD-Seagate combination), and the (very clued-in) tech >guy said, "well, you have both drives set to drive 2 don't you?" >(silence on my end). I finally said "Yea, sure I do, course I do, >waddya think, I'm a dummy, that's the ticket" and went and set both >seagates to be drive 2 and the thing works great. > >I have some idea how controllers work, and some idea how drives work, >but no idea why *that* worked. Since there seems to be a lot of discussion on the topic of twisted wires on the controller cables, you might as well know what the twist does -- it swaps the drive ID lines from between the two connectors. This is done so that all drives are set to the same ID (who knows why, I think it's pretty silly myself -- especially since they're all set to 2). So untwisted wires work the way any normal person would think, drive 1 set to drive 1, drive 2 set to drive 2; but not twisted wires. And, as has been mentioned, this is also done on some floppies. Even worse, I had to install a second drive on a Tandy 1000SX. The edge connector on the card is upside-down from standard, and the cable is extremely short. So, I had to buy some ribbon cable and connectors, make a longer cable, put in a few twists to invert the second connector, and install the drive. Isn't it wonderful how manufacturer's make little changes here and there to prevent you from buying other vendor's parts :-)? Bradley Dyck Kliewer Hacking... bkliewer@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu It's not just an adventure It's my job!