Newsgroups: comp.sys.ti.explorer
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From: friedman@cli.com (Noah Friedman)
Subject: converting single-disk bricks to double
Message-ID: <FRIEDMAN.94Dec21160553@tepui.cli.com>
Followup-To: comp.sys.ti.explorer
Sender: usenet@cli.com (Usenet News)
Organization: The Life-Sized Plastic Cow Butter Mold Company
Date: Wed, 21 Dec 1994 22:05:53 GMT
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Has anyone reading this 'froup ever converted a brick with one disk drive
so that it can hold two?  I tried this today but didn't have any luck
getting my Exploder I to recognize the second drive.  I don't have any
hardware manuals, but a friend (who also said he had no idea how to do what
I'm trying anyway) said they aren't helpful.

Both of the drives I was trying to put in the brick are Maxtor XT1140
(140MB capacity) drives. 

My guess is that the following things are crucial to proper configuration:

        * Having separate data path cables for each drive, connected to J4
          and J6 respectively on the board behind the Adaptec controller
          which, for the lack of any better name, I'll call the controller
          interface board since most everything plugs into it.

        * One command path cable connected from J5 to both of the disks.
          But I am not sure if one of the end connectors should have any of
          the wires reversed, as I've seen with some PC setups.

        * On the disks themselves, set different device addresses by
          moving the jumpers on the row of pins by the command path
          connection.  These seem to be labeled slightly differently
          depending on the revision of the disk drive.

        * Make sure only one of the drives has an internal terminator
          resistor.  There's a 2-row, 14-pin slot right behind the address
          jumpers.

        * Plugs for the power supply (needless to say).

What I am less certain about is whether I need any extra cables to connect,
say, J8 on the controller interface board to the adaptec controller proper,
move the cable connected from J7 on the CIB to another "disk n" slot on the
controller, or what.  I don't know whether I need to move any of the
multitudinous jumpers on the controller.  Or in fact, whether I am going
about this in completely the wrong way from beginning to end.

If anyone has any suggestions they can offer, I would be most appreciative.
Happy 'sploding either way.
