Supra 30 Not Detected

[pixelmischief]

I've bought a Supra 30 some several months ago and am just getting around to trying it out. The hard disk was squealing like a pig, so I removed it. I don't have a SCSI internal to replace it with, but I do have the IDESC21-E SCSI-to-IDE bridge and CF Card Adapter that I have used successfully in everything from an Apple Performa 6100CD to an Akai MPC 2000. When I connect it as a SCSI device inside the Supra and boot with HDDRIVER, nothing is detected.

 

Any advice on how to get this up and running will be deeply appreciated.

[ParanoidLittleMan]

Supra is very old SCSI adapter. Usually such devices work not with new devices. I think that best chances are to get some old SCSI drive. You need to know is it supporting parity - if not, then list of usable drives will be even shorter.

[+SoulBuster]

I agree, it is all about parity. Do you have the ability to configure the SCSI to IDE adapter?

 

I have SCSI to SD adapters and I have to use a PC and a USB cable to configure it.

[pixelmischief]

I agree, it is all about parity. Do you have the ability to configure the SCSI to IDE adapter?

 

I have SCSI to SD adapters and I have to use a PC and a USB cable to configure it.

I'm working with a SCSI-to-IDE bridge. Its configured with jumpers. Check out the manual (attached). I don't see a parity setting.

 

IDSC21-E_Jumper_Settings.pdf

[pixelmischief]

I've found a 4GB SCSI drive that must support parity, as it has a jumper to disable parity. It has an SCA connector, so I also bought an SCA-80 to IDC50 adapter. Its the Seagate Barracuda ST34371WC. Here's the manual:

 

67491d.pdf

[atarian63]

maybe a dirty board on the bottom of the drive, try removing it and cleaning the connectors on the bottom and retry to see if it detects. also early 30mb wd drives had a socketed bios chip,the have a flat chip pin inserted into a round hold, fixed a few hundred that didnt detect by soldering the pins (use heat sink on each pin) into the round sockets. You can also just try removing the chip gently,prying it out and cleaning the pins (i bet they are black) a basic pencil eraser works.

Edited November 20, 2018 by atarian63

[+SoulBuster]

I've found a 4GB SCSI drive that must support parity, as it has a jumper to disable parity. It has an SCA connector, so I also bought an SCA-80 to IDC50 adapter. Its the Seagate Barracuda ST34371WC. Here's the manual:

 

67491d.pdf

 

All you can do is try it. Have you received the 80 to 50 adapter yet?

 

I also have a Supra that does not detect drives. The original was seized, but I worked it loose and it still did not detect it.

 

I guess I have not been paying attention, but does HDDriver detect the device even if it cannot detect the drive? I guess I will be playing with this on this long weekend.

 

[pixelmischief]

Progress, but problems, too. I have the drive and 80-to-50 adapter chained up and connected to the HBA in the Supra. The drive has parity disabled by jumper, and the adapter is set to ID0. No jumpers for termination, on either the adapter or the drive, are set; though there are a few. Below, I will cover the state of my efforts with ICD PRO, HDDRIVER, and the Supra Utilities.

 

ICD PRO: Detects the drive on startup. But when I try to run their format/partitioning utility, I immediately get a TOS ERROR #35. Other executables on the floppy start and find/interact with the drive; at least as it pertains to basic recognition and diagnostics.

 

HDDRIVER 7.80 and 9.08: Detects the drive on startup. HDDRUTIL finds the drive, but no partitions. I can run a complete "format", but when I try to "partition", I get an error message complaining that it "Couldn't determine the medium's capacity."

 

Supra Utilities: Like the others, I can start the format utility and it finds the drive. This is where it gets tricky. I have to designate the controller and disk models as "OTHER". Then it's about specifying heads and cylinders and sectors and whatnot. Most of this I was able to get from the documentation for the drive. Where I ran into trouble was on "Sectors per Track". I was only able to find the following specs in the docs:

 

Heads: 10

Surfaces: 5

Cylinders: 5288

Bytes per track: 102500

Bytes per surface: 531

Tracks per surface: 5178

Bytes per sector: 512

I mathed it out to 200 (102500/512), but the provided field will only hold a 2-digit number. It is defaulted to 26, so I left it.

This gives me ~700MB to work with. I specced out a C: drive at 16MB and hit FORMAT. The thing is 4GB, so it takes some time. Afterward...kinda nothing. No partitions seem to be there.

All of that is where I am at. I hear tell of a Fujitsu 500MB drive that has supposedly been a success in the Supra 30 box. If I have to punt, that's where I will go next. For now, I am going to keep tweaking it in the hopes I'll find a combo that works.