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Old IDE drive powers down when connected

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Vin Digit

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Jan 12, 2024
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I'm attempting to connect up an old Seagate ST3120A ~107MB IDE drive to be backed up and then wiped. When the power is connected, the drive appears to spin up as expected, however when the IDE cable is connected it just spins down. I've viewed this resource and adjusted the jumpers, but that does not seem to have had any effect. When I pulled the drive (from a 486 machine) the jumpers were on both of the reserved locations.

Has anyone managed to fix an issue like this before? Thanks
 
You mean it spins up and then immediately spins down ?
Maybe it is not happy with that controller card
 
Does the drive spin down with no cable connected? Are you sure about the orientation (e.g. "upside down") and position (not "shifted" one way or the other) of the cable plug? (both on the host and drive ends). If the drive spins down with no cable connected, it's likely a failure in the servo circuitry or disk surface. The positioner might also be "stuck" in place.
 
The drive will spin up when powered up (you can hear the seeking too) and stay spinning until the drive is connected, at which time it just spins down and stays stopped.

I've tried it with a USB-IDE adapter and straight IDE (it happens on the original computer it was connected to) but it still powers down. When the IDE connection is removed, the drive spins back up again.

It looks like someone's having a similar problem with a similar drive.

I wonder if it is the controller board, I hope not as sourcing another one could be quite tricky!


(sorry for the late response to this thread btw)
 
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