maclover6

Q: Power Macintosh 7600/120 SCSI drive

Hello all! I have a super irritating issue at the moment with one of my older computers. I have a Power Macintosh 7600/120 that uses SCSI as it's main HDD interface. My last SCSI drive has failed and I'm unable to find cheep drives that fit the smaller SCSI connector. Is it possible to adapt the ribbon cable to accept IDE? Any help would be greatly appreciated! Thanks!

Posted on Jan 31, 2014 7:36 AM

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Q: Power Macintosh 7600/120 SCSI drive

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  • by Ralph Landry1,

    Ralph Landry1 Jan 31, 2014 7:39 AM in response to maclover6
    Level 8 (41,782 points)
    Jan 31, 2014 7:39 AM in response to maclover6

    Interesting, I have a 7600/132 with a Sonnet G4 replacement cpu card, added a second SCSI drive...thought seriously about getting a PCI card with SATA instead but never did...thing just would not die.

     

    Have you looked at OWC, http://www.macsales.com to see if they have a replacement card that will work?

  • by Jan Hedlund,

    Jan Hedlund Jan Hedlund Jan 31, 2014 3:30 PM in response to maclover6
    Level 6 (9,889 points)
    Jan 31, 2014 3:30 PM in response to maclover6

    >Is it possible to adapt the ribbon cable to accept IDE?

     

    A pure cable adaption is not sufficient. SCSI is a completely different protocol. A web search for something like SCSI-IDE adapter, SCSI-CF adapter and/or SCSI-SATA adapter may give you some ideas about hardware available. However, be prepared to experiment.

     

    Jan

  • by Jeff,Solvedanswer

    Jeff Jeff Feb 1, 2014 1:15 AM in response to maclover6
    Level 6 (11,559 points)
    Feb 1, 2014 1:15 AM in response to maclover6

    If you want to connect a bootable IDE hard drive, you'll need to install a Mac-compatible (PC versions won't work) Ultra ATA-66 or ATA-100 PCI controller card, such as this Sonnet card listed at ebay.  Make sure that your 7600 supports the card.  You can also seach the web for the (discontinued) Acard AEC-6260M Ultra ATA-66 controller card.  I just checked ebay for 50-pin SCSI hard drives and can't believe what they're selling for, compared to what I paid for comparably-sized drives 10 years ago.  That's what scarcity does, even when the demand is low.  There was an ebay seller (Tony Lafrenz) who specialized in used SCSI hard drives, but time and technology's evolution may have retired his ebay store by now.  Keep in mind that anything you find will likely be used and as old, if not older, than your failed drive. This could  limit the service life that you might hope to get from a used drive.

  • by Appaloosa mac man,

    Appaloosa mac man Appaloosa mac man Feb 3, 2014 9:34 AM in response to maclover6
    Level 5 (4,330 points)
    Feb 3, 2014 9:34 AM in response to maclover6

    Do not forget that external SCSI port!  Zip drives are a dime a dozen and Zip floppies are also easy to find.  The great thing about SCSI is that you can boot OS 8 from an external zip disk.

     

    Ji~m

  • by maclover6,

    maclover6 maclover6 Feb 5, 2014 9:58 AM in response to maclover6
    Level 1 (15 points)
    Feb 5, 2014 9:58 AM in response to maclover6

    I ended up picking up a PCI controller card and insalled a new IDE drive and it's all running like it should! Thank you all!