IDE Drive Problem in Takky

Well, assuming you did the cable correctly all I can think of is that this drive was originally formatted for something other than a Mac. I have had nothing but trouble on older machines trying to use drives from PCs in my Macs. I used to use a third party formatting and drive utility but I can't remember what that is now. I have forgotten most of what I knew about Macs when I went to the darkside (wIntel).

Two thoughts:

1. I'd try another smaller IDE drive that has come from a Mac, to rule out some issues.

2. You are aware of the 'IDE wiring' argument of a few years ago, about the ambiguity over the Takky diagrams? Alexei Danilchenko was a major 'discusser'. I never got into the issue, having sold my Takky, but it would be worth searching the forums.

Stuart

being pc formatted shouldn't be a problem... I'd chime in along with stuart about the wiring, as I recall some breif ide problems way back when I was building my takky mod. I've got an adaptor to use laptop ide drives on a regular ide cable, and it had a very vague, almost nondescript ide connector... double check to make sure you didn't connect the cable backwards or something; it took me a couple tries before it worked, but once it was connected properly, both my OS install CD and norton CD saw it without a problem.

(also, don't forget about cable select / master)

I've checked my Takky, and the No.1 pin is actually No.40 on mine. It's one of the backwards ones. IIRC, I got this particular wiring harness from CL, so I don't know which desktop model it originally came from.

I've also muddled around with a laptop drive and desktop to 2.5" adapter - no luck.

I was able to see the drive briefly, and it appeared with a vast number of partitions on the drive (really there's just one), then never appeared again. Tried reformatting the drive on PC and the drive was fine, tried setting the master/slave jumper...nothing.

No problems if I hook a 3.5" IDE up to the cable.

I'm suspicious of my adapter at this point, but back to your problem...perhaps you *need* to plug the cable in backwards depending on how your harness is arranged.

My takky runs off a 12GB IBM TravelStar on a 2.5->3.5 adaptor and does so very nicely.

I think you've got a wiring problem, but check with a standard 3.5" disk to be sure.

When I have to open up my takky, I'll trace out the wiring diagram and let everyone know what it is that really works. :-)

*frown* - I'm just at the end of my knowledge with that darn IDE interface. I've connected a new, longer IDE cable according to Stuarts site, made sure everything's proper, and still, I cannot see any IDE devices. I've meddled with the connectors, different versions of Apple Drive Setup, and even a regular IDE drive - no luck.

I really don't know what's up with that machine. By the way, the system won't boot if the connector is inserted backwards, if inserted as it's supposed to, system will boot but won't see any drives. Not a power issue either as I run the disk from an external power supply. The system profiler doesn't even mention the ATA interface, it only shows my SCSI devices. Is there anything I'm missing. Macs have been using IDE since OS 7.5 I believe, so it shouldn't be OS related, or could it be? I don't know - this one's got me stumped - *throws hands in the air*

. . . and takes a SCSI drive down from a high shelf? I've always found the black art of SCSI preferable to the random luck of IDE.

Stuart

I guess I'll have to stick with SCSI, that's how it looks like anyway because I'm not willing to by an Apple-branded legacy IDE drive, no sir.

I was just hoping on faster performance as the SCSI interface runs with 5 MBps max whereas ATA PIO-3 at theoretically 11.1 MBps - and since I already have a fast IDE disk floating around virtually useless since last year... Oh heck Are there others who have had problems like this (I bet they're running SCSI as well by now). Hehe.