Seagate Cheetah SCSI Drive

[Random73421]

I bought a Seagate Cheetah ST39102LW surplus for $7.

I plugged it into a molex and no spinning-up vibrations or noise. I notice that there is a jumper for 'remot motor start enable" that turns on the spindle motor when the controller is present. This jumper, however, is not shorted. It should spin up when it has power, I guess. But it doesn't. The chips on the bottom of it get warm, though, if that matters.

Do these things need a controller to start up, or is my hard drive broken?

I was planning on getting an Adaptec AHA-2940U2W with LVD cable + terminator for $25, but don't want to waste the money if it won't work.

Thanks.

-Random

 

[mechBgon]

Someone called...? 😀

The drive gets a motor-start command from the controller. That drive's a very old-generation one and if you want my advice, don't bother further on account of a drive that old and slow. If it were a Cheetah X15-36LP or something, then hey.

If you want to get some SCSI regardless, try to find a used Adaptec 19160 or an LSI Logic Ultra160. They're both natively recognized by Windows XP Setup, which is nice, and they've got enough bandwidth for any single Ultra160 or Ultra320 drive so you don't feel bottlenecked later when you move on to the harder drugs (in the form of a current-generation 15k drive) :evil:

 

[Random73421]

Thanks a ton man. I plan on buying the 19160. I'll keep the drive for now since I only use it to back up my music, and it's faster than the old ATA-33 Maxtor in my backup "server" now.

-Random