KLBY@vax5.cit.cornell.edu (04/27/91)
I am having an odd problem with Sun 3/50's and my Miniscribe 9380S disk drive and my cable. This is an interesting problem, and I will do my best to explain it. I have a Miniscribe 9380S disk drive that I wish to use with my Sun 3/50. I built a SCSI cable from a db50 and a 50 pin header strip. First of all, I checked my cable with an ohmmeter, and verified all the pins went to the right pins. Next I took my disk and cable and went to a friends to format it. At that point in time I found that my cable did not work with any Sun 3/50. I thought this was odd, but the Sun just would not find the drive. Next I attempted to use my friends cable, and again, no luck in finding the drive. Odd. I began to wonder if the drive was alive. Next, we went and tried my friends drive on a few 3/50's and they all came up. I was really beginning to think my drive was DOA. Anyway, next for the hell of it we put my drive and his cable on his 3/60, and it found it right away. So, my cable did not work with any drive on any Sun. My drive would work with his cable on his 3/60. His drive would work with his cable on any Sun. I should mention we where using the same power supply for the drives through all of these tests. I also checked my cable against his to make sure they where the same, and they where. I bought a different brand of ribbon cable and I am going to try building another cable, but the big question is: Have any of you ever ran across a disk drive that will not run on one model of CPU? any ideas?
wolfgang@wsrcc.com (Wolfgang S. Rupprecht) (05/10/91)
KLBY@vax5.cit.cornell.edu writes: >I have a Miniscribe 9380S disk drive that I wish to use with my Sun >3/50. I built a SCSI cable from a db50 and a 50 pin header strip. >First of all, I checked my cable with an ohmmeter, and verified all >the pins went to the right pins. [...] So, my cable did not work with >any drive on any Sun. My drive would work with his cable on his >3/60. His drive would work with his cable on any Sun. Does he have SCSI pin-26 connected in his cable? Do you? Many early model 3/50's shorted SCSI pin 26 to ground. This tended to upset the disks that tried to source +5 onto this pin. The simplest solution was to not hook up pin 26 on Sun SCSI cables. Wolfgang Rupprecht wolfgang@wsrcc.com (or) uunet!wsrcc!wolfgang Snail Mail Address: Box 6524, Alexandria, VA 22306-0524