Mac SE Superdrive new HD not Spinning but led on the drive is on ...

[Roy_Don]

I don't know if many folks here are familiar with old (1988) Macintosh SE Superdrives or not but I have one and it is in great condition for its age. The only problem is that I had to replace the harddrive. The new drive itself is a Seagate Barracuda ST39173W 9LP which is compatible and I also have an appropriate 68 to 50 pin scsi adapter. The OS is Mac OS 7.0.1.

Here is the problem, the drive will not spin up but there is a small LED on the drive itself that is on. The activity light is also on but it stays on and wont go off. It goes without saying that the computer wont recognize the drive, so I cannot format and install the OS. Here is what I have done so far:

I hooked the drive up correctly
I have the pins(j2) without the jumper so the SCSI ID is set to 0
I have pins 15 and 16 (j6) jumpered so that termination is enabled.

As far as I know this should be it for the drive to work but as I said, no spinning or recognizing of any kind, only a small LED on the drives PCB. Any tips or solutions would be greatly appreciated.

BTW here is a link to the manual in case this helps.
http://

 

[dark_lord69]

Try it in a different computer like a PC and see if it's recognized or if you have a faulty drive.
If the drive works on a different system then you may have a faulty adapter or something isn't right with the way it's setup.
I can't advise you on setup for that since I don't know much about old mac computers.

 

[Roy_Don]

I can't try it anywhere else since this is the only computer that I have that uses SCSI

 

[jsmithepa]

Sounds like motor is dead... not much you can do about... am almost sure u can find a replacement on eBay.

 

[Roy_Don]

I am pretty sure the HD is fine. I bought it brand new off of Ebay as a replacement for the original. I have a sneaking suspicion that the SCSI controller is the problem but I have no way to test this, at least IDK how to.

As far as the way it is configured, I know that I have it set up right because the internal HD is always set to SCSI ID 0, which it is, and putting a jumper on pins 15 and 16 enables termination, which is also what I have done.

Of course I cannot rule out the possibility that I bought a defective HD but again, I dont have any way to test it since this comp is the only SCSI compatible comp in my house. I am reluctant to buy another HD because I already put too much money into this nearly 30 year old computer as it is.