[K12OSN] using really old PCs as clients

Les Mikesell lesmikesell at gmail.com
Wed Oct 14 18:38:13 UTC 2009


raju VK wrote:
> I was about to try this method. But I am facing a peculiar problem. The 
> oldest HDDs I currently have is of 39 pin. But the connector on board is 
> of 40 pins. When I tried to boot the PC by connecting one of these HDDs, 
> (with (DOS), the PC refuses to start.  I tried by flipping the cable ( 
> to check whether it is fitted reversley). Once the HDD is disconnected, 
> the PC starts without any problem.
> Any clue what went wrong ?

IDE connectors normally have the lower center pin out with a 
corresponding blank in the cable so you can't reverse them - and there 
is also a notch up in the cable connector opposite this that fits a 
cut-out in the edge of the disk connector.  But besides getting the pins 
right you also need the jumpers on the drive to select it as master (if 
it is the only drive) or slave (if the 2nd on the cable).  Also on older 
  PCs there were different size limits on the drives that could be 
attached and it's not unusual to fail to boot if a disk that is too 
large is connected. Sometimes a firmware update can fix this, but you'll 
have to boot something to install it.   If you are working with very 
many disks, I'd recommend getting an inexpensive USB->IDE (and SATA) 
cable adapter so  you can hot-plug them into a more modern (USB 2.0) 
machine.

-- 
   Les Mikesell
    lesmikesell at gmail.com




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