issue with WDS-280 HDD

[techknight]

I picked up a couple of powerbooks here on the trading post. both missing HDDs. imagine that. one i knew about, one i DIDNT know about.

Regardless, i picked up another parts machine on ebay that had a bad screen.

HDD was present, an 80mb IBM drive.

I removed the HDD and tried it in both the powerbooks I have, the 160 and 165.

Problem seems to be when connected, the drive spins up, you can hear the head seek during its normal power on sequence and then the computer just gets stuck at the gray screen wtih mouse curser. Never freezes, i can move the mouse. but its "frozen". hard to explain.

If i connect an external CDROM up to the powerbook SCSI port, the system will now boot up just fine. but HD SC setup does not recognize the drive.

and then the disk first aid sees a "unknown disk" with a floppy icon. strange....

There isnt a "click of death" as in a head crash. it seeks perfectly fine when first spun up. but the computer just doesnt "like" the drive or its SCSI configs.

 

[Bunsen]

Have you tried a 3rd party formatter or the hacked HD SC?

 

[techknight]

Sorry, i mis-worded my first post. let me rephrase it.

If the HDD is plugged in, and i have an external drive plugged in and powered up, the mac will refuse to boot, freezes at gray screen with mouse cursur. If i cut power to the external drive, the machine will unfreeze right then and come to a blinking "?"

soon as i flip the power switch back on the external drive, it freezes again.

If i unplug the external drive from the SCSI connector on the laptop itself, it freezes, until i remove the internal IBM HDD.

I tried to boot up the laptop without the internal HDD connected, and just connected the external CDROM drive. the laptop booted up off of the CD just fine. connected the internal HDD back up to the laptop while powered on and live, which is risky, i know, but if i dont it wont boot.

machine still functions fine, and accesses CD just fine still. But if i go to run HD SC setup, it freezes right there. with the MacWait curser. It is strange.

Anyway, sometimes when the drive spins up, the laptop goes into a reboot frenzy, so either my power adapter isnt holding up, or the drive is just plain shot.

But when the drive does power up and the laptop becomes stable, the drive spins and does its power on seek test just fine. doesnt fail or go click click click.

 

[Forrest]

Sounds like your hard drive and CD are both set to the same SCSI ID# - which is a no no. They need to have separate SCSI ID#'s - check the jumpers on the hard drive.

 

[techknight]

HDD is set to SCSI ID 0 and CDROM is set to SCSI ID 2

And as mentioned before, if nothing is plugged into the SCSI chain at all, just the HDD, it still freezes at the mouse curser screen.

 

[techknight]

i think the power supply is giving out. now i cant get the machine to fire up with the HDD connected. it powers on, then it starts going into a reboot every half second frenzy, after it does that a few times, the screen just fills with lines while the speaker goes pip-pip-pip-pip-pip.

then itll just quit.....

remove AC power cord, remove the HDD and plug AC cord back in, machine runs fine. soon as i connect HDD, the machine cant stay on. like its pulling too much power.

 

[techknight]

I tried MicroNet v6.9.3, it sees the 80mb drive at ID0. but then it freezes right there during the drive scan.

Then i tried SCSIprobe 4.3. it sees the IBM drive as ID0, soon as you click mount, the hard drive clicks once and the computer freezes.

strange.

 

[techknight]

I tried FWB hard disk toolkit and you can hear the WDS280 click a couple times and FWB freezes at the splash screen with the FWB mouse curser rotating away into oblivion.....

Maybe the drive is crashed, when it tries to probe it, it never becomes ready. who knows.

 

[Bunsen]

That sounds likely. Have you got another internal SCSI drive you can try, or an external HD? Have you tried the drive in another machine?

 

[techknight]

ive tried the drive in all 3 machines. all do the same exact thing, PB145B, PB160, PB165.

Also external HDD i have an 80mb quantum prodrive, removed the CDROM and plugged the HDD into it and it boots right up. works fine.

problem is. i bought the 145B on ebay HOPING the HDD was good. only reason i bought it, because im not paying 100 bucks for another SCSI drive.

But of course, my luck, the drive is bad. :-(

So, i found an Atmel AVR SCSI to PCMCIA hack that was posted here in the hacks forum, I am thinking about building that in a micro scale, and recoding it for SD cards. maybe thatll work.

 

[trag]

Have you double checked termination? Duplicate SCSI IDs won't usually cause a system freeze, but an improperly terminated SCSI chain can cause a freeze.

This would be consistent with your machine behaving differently when the external drive is attached. With it attached, you've got more cable length so the impedance is different and so you get different results.

 

[techknight]

how would i check termination?

I removed the SCSI CDROM out of my enclosure, and replaced it with an old 80mb prodrive set as ID2

Installed system 7.5.3 onto that HDD and the system works peachy. But soon as you connect back up the internal hard drive to the chain with the external drive on and running, it wont boot. freezes at gray screen. Same thing if i have the external drive completely unplugged. just the powerbook. it freezes.

If i leave the power off to the external HDD leaving it hooked up, the computer will "unfreeze" even with the internal HDD connected. Thats how I am able to get the system to boot with the internal drive connected. I power up the machine until it freezes, cut the power off via the switch on the external HDD. then the computer will "unfreeze" and blink the ?

Turn the power back on to external drive, and the system will boot. SCSIprobe 4.3 once booted, WILL SEE the internal drive as ID0 WDS-280. soon as you hit mount, youll hear the internal HDD click a couple times and boom freezes. The computer will remain frozen WITH mouse movement not frozen. If i recycle the power on the external HDD, it will "unfreeze" and computer will tick right along just fine.