I am in the process of trying to upgrade my MK2 unit with a pair of 60GB IBM Travelstar drives. Regardless of what I have tried, I cannot get the unit to recognize both drives when starting up, I constantly get the "No drives" error message.

I have followed the upgrade FAQ to the letter, and I performed the disk builder procedure on both drives, and applied the developer image to both drives as well (swapping each of them in and out of the unit individually).

Now, when I connect the first 60GB drive to the end of the cable (on the left as you face the unit) and then connect the second drive to the middle of the cable (right side as you face the unit) and jumper it slave according to IBM's documentation, the unit will not boot and does not recognize the drives. It appears that the master drive does not require a jumper in a dual-drive configuration. I even tried jumpering both as cable select, but that didn't work either (nor did I expect it to).

If I disconnect both drives, and try either of them one at a time at the end of the cable (left side, with no jumpers) the unit will boot normally and seems to be just fine.

If I re-connect the original drive as the master, and jumper one of the IBM drives as slave, and connect them both to the cable and try to boot, I get the same error message: "No drives found"

Therefore, all I can conclude is that I have a bad cable, and specifically, the "middle" connector perhaps? I see no visible signs of damage on the cable though.

Can anyone think of anything I am missing, or does it seem to be a bad cable?

Many Thanks,

Rob

or does it seem to be a bad cable?

You didn't say whether a single drive on the middle connector worked or not. If a single drive works on the middle connector, then the cable might be just fine.

Other things to suspect:

- Not enough power to spin up both drives at the same time.

- Not enough spin-up wait-time in the kernel for both drives to boot. I wonder if someone can compile you a custom kernel with an extra-long wait time.

Has anyone else used this particular pair of drives successfully? Any tips to offer?

Tony,

Thanks for the quick response!

I tried all three of the available drives (original, plus both 60GB Travelstars) in the middle, and none worked.

When I try the original Fujitsu as the Master, and one of the Travelstars jumpered as a Slave, it failed once, booted once, and now is not booting again.

This leads me to believe I have a bad cable, but I could be wrong.

Thanks again, and I welcome any/all help!

Rob

If a single drive consistently works on the end connector but not the middle connector, then you're right, that is a classic symptom of a bad cable.

I don't believe it's a power issue. Paul Grzelak has had this setup ever since those IBM drives became available and I've never heard him complain about lack of power.

My money is on the cable being bad.

It is also posible that the jumper you are using is not fittng tight enough to the pins on the hard drive, also the conector closest to the pcb is the master(just to make shure) I have seen jumpers seem to fit good but not be making secure electircal conection.

Ben

Greetings!

I would suspect the cable. I have not had problems with power or anything else in my setup. Although, I think I have the slave device at the end of the cable.