Trouble with new hard drive in LX Pro

Hello,

We have an HP LX Pro server which has been working great for years.
We're currently running Linux on it.

We need to add quite a bit more disk space to it, so I purchased two
74GB Seagate SCA-2 SCSI drives (model ST373307LC). Unfortunately,
when we power off the machine, put the drives in, and power it back
up, the drives seem to be completely unrecognized. The power light
for the drive comes on briefly (less than a second), then goes off,
while the lights for all other drives stay on. The SCSI card reports
all of the devices it finds while booting, and doesn't report this
drive. It also seems to prevent any drive after it in the chain from
being seen.

The drive has no jumpers set, since the SCA-2 interface should allow
the host to set the SCSI ID. There's no support for termination in
the drive (it requires external termination), so that shouldn't be an
issue.

Since the issue is visible before the OS starts loading, I assume it's
a hardware issue, rather than an OS issue.

I'm not sure how to proceed from here. Any suggestions? Does the LX
only support HP-branded drives, or only drives 18GB or less? Has
anybody gotten larger drives to work in it? Is putting the drives in
an external enclosure (rather than connecting them to the backplane)
likely to make a difference?

Thanks for any ideas!

----ScottG.

Yes, the LC drives are low-voltage differential (LVD), for which you need a SCSI
host adapter which does LVD. One non-RAID example is the Adaptec 29160. If you
can somehow rig up the cables (and drive cage?) in the LX Pro to hook the LVD
drives to the LVD adapter, you should have a workable solution without spending
a lot more money. Otherwise, you'll need some sort of external SCSI box which
accepts the 80-pin SCA drives... Ben Myers

On 14 Jan 2004 19:25:04 -0600, Scott Gifford <> wrote:

>Scott Gifford <> writes:
>
>[...]
>
>> I purchased two 74GB Seagate SCA-2 SCSI drives (model ST373307LC).
>> Unfortunately, when we power off the machine, put the drives in, and
>> power it back up, the drives seem to be completely unrecognized.
>
>A kind gentleman mailed me off-list, and suggested the problem might
>be high-voltage differential vs. low-voltage differential SCSI. That
>appears to be the problem.
>
>Guess I'll have to figure something else out, but I wanted to post
>this so some poor soul with the same problem as me can find it in
>USENET archives.
>
>Thanks!
>
>----ScottG.

Scott Gifford <> writes:

[...]

> I purchased two 74GB Seagate SCA-2 SCSI drives (model ST373307LC).
> Unfortunately, when we power off the machine, put the drives in, and
> power it back up, the drives seem to be completely unrecognized.

A kind gentleman mailed me off-list, and suggested the problem might
be high-voltage differential vs. low-voltage differential SCSI. That
appears to be the problem.

Guess I'll have to figure something else out, but I wanted to post
this so some poor soul with the same problem as me can find it in
USENET archives.

Thanks!

----ScottG.

Ben Myers wrote:

> Yes, the LC drives are low-voltage differential (LVD), for which you need a SCSI
> host adapter which does LVD. One non-RAID example is the Adaptec 29160. If you
> can somehow rig up the cables (and drive cage?) in the LX Pro to hook the LVD
> drives to the LVD adapter, you should have a workable solution without spending
> a lot more money. Otherwise, you'll need some sort of external SCSI box which
> accepts the 80-pin SCA drives... Ben Myers
>
> On 14 Jan 2004 19:25:04 -0600, Scott Gifford <> wrote:
>
>
>>Scott Gifford <> writes:
>>
>>[...]
>>
>>
>>>I purchased two 74GB Seagate SCA-2 SCSI drives (model ST373307LC).
>>>Unfortunately, when we power off the machine, put the drives in, and
>>>power it back up, the drives seem to be completely unrecognized.
>>
>>A kind gentleman mailed me off-list, and suggested the problem might
>>be high-voltage differential vs. low-voltage differential SCSI. That
>>appears to be the problem.
>>
>>Guess I'll have to figure something else out, but I wanted to post
>>this so some poor soul with the same problem as me can find it in
>>USENET archives.
>>
>>Thanks!
>>
>>----ScottG.
>
>
Just jumper the drive for SE mode and you are a go.

Jim