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View Full Version : Connecting an SCSI hard drive.....


Forkandles
25th Apr 2007, 13:05
Company IT department are a waste of space, so I'll open this to the floor...
I've got the old drive out of my works Windows 2000 Professional PC. Motherboard went bang and it's now in the bin. The drive is an Ultra 160 SCSI 68-pin LVD Fujitsu. (Lots of work files on it, etc)
I now want to put it into my Windows XP PC (I work from home) but the drives in mine are ATA types.
Now, can I buy an SCSI controller, fit it to a spare PCI slot on my PC and connect it all up, assuming I get the correct cables and there are enough outputs on my power supply?? Or would my best bet be going to a 'puter repair shop and asking them to transfer the contents to a new ATA drive?
SCSI controllers seem to be between £50-£150 and I haven't a clue whether it will work or not...
To me computers are like cars, I can drive them, but fcuk knows how they work!!!

One of you is bound to know...:ok:

Mac the Knife
26th Apr 2007, 06:59
"....can I buy an SCSI controller, fit it to a spare PCI slot on my PC and connect it all up, assuming I get the correct cables and there are enough outputs on my power supply??"

Yes. Easy. Just make sure you get the right controller, and don't forget to terminate the drive properly - http://www.scsita.org/aboutscsi/SCSI_Termination_Tutorial.html

:ok:

Bushfiva
26th Apr 2007, 09:17
As MkT said, it's easy. Actually, I'd say "mostly easy" :-) You could also get a USB to SCSI adapter and use it as an external drive, if you son't want to faff around inside the beast.

Keef
26th Apr 2007, 09:55
What Mac said.

There are two sorts of SCSI controllers: bootable ones, and non-bootable ones. If you want to be able to boot from the drive...

There are another two sorts of SCSI controllers: not-so-many-pins ones, and lots-of-pins ones.

There are two sorts of SCSI controllers: PCI ones, and something-else-than-PCI ones.

SCSI sends the signals down the wire so fast, that if you don't have balanced termination, you get RF standing waves on the cable and it all goes pear-shaped. So you need a terminator (or more than one, in some cases).

Once you've done that, it's plain sailing.

Both my desktop machines have SCSI cards in, for the SCSI CD writer (the only reliable way to do it years ago) and the scanner (ditto).

The good news is that I got the SCSI cards on Ebay for about a tenner. They were like £250 when new, but that was a very long time ago. One's ISA, the other PCI.

frostbite
26th Apr 2007, 11:42
You certainly should be able to get a SCSI controller cheaper - I bought a new one from autdirect.co.uk for around £25 some time ago. Mind you, I did collect from their local shop.

vapilot2004
26th Apr 2007, 23:59
Try amazon.com/uk or ebay for a PCI SCSI card for less than £10.

Check PCI card description for cable type (68 pin = wide SCSI for your drive) and Windows XP compatability. Best chance for instructions, drivers and cables is with a 'retail' item and not 'oem' card.


Good Luck!

IO540
28th Apr 2007, 06:00
I'd get a SCSI controller off Ebay, an Adaptec 29160 or similar. They cost about £200 new and I got a nice one for £20.

The drive will have a dipswitch-set SCSI ID but if this is your only SCSI device you don't need to change it; the controller's BIOS will discover the drive at startup.

Change the motherboard BIOS to boot from "SCSI" and it should work.

The drive should also work as a second HD, so you still boot from the EIDE one; this may be better for recovering old data since you may not want to boot the O/S from a hard drive that came from a computer whose motherboard was totally different. Moving a hard drive with the O/S on it and booting from it is a can of worms, and often the audio and video drivers stop working, for obvious reasons.