Knightmare fitting Hard Drive... Please help A1200

[kiniki]

Hi again!

I have looked at loads of pictures of A1200's with hard drives..

I have made sure the cable has the red stripe facing down the machine... ie towards the front. Plugged into the connector cables fine....

However when I try to attach the hard drive (label facing up) the cable won't fit as it has a little bump of plastic at the top... meaning it needs to be the other way round..

This then means that I have to bend the cable so it turns over... however now the keyboard wont fit over because the cable it poking out...

Am I doing this right?

[lurkist]

Are you sure the cable should be twisted as you describe?  Have you tried powering on the machine in either position?

This photo shows the cable red stripe up, and straight across.

http://fragment.stc.cx/kuv/a1200.jpg

[kiniki]

lurkist wrote:
Are you sure the cable should be twisted as you describe?  Have you tried powering on the machine in either position?

This photo shows the cable red stripe up, and straight across.

http://fragment.stc.cx/kuv/a1200.jpg

Ah!!! Thats different to a photo I saw earlier!

I didn't try it for fear of blowing the thing up!

[lurkist]

I've never blown a hard drive up by fitting the cable the wrong way, so you should be okay to briefly test the setup.

THIS IS NOT A GUARANTEE OF SAFETY, just my experience.

I don't think the position of the red stripe makes that much difference, as long as the cable goes straight across.

It should be a tight squeeze to get the hard drive back in position as the two ends of the connector are very close together (not like the example photo as he has re-positioned the cradle to fit other stuff).

[bwperez]

Take the statement "THIS IS NOT A GUARANTEE OF SAFETY" as a STRONG warning.  I have burnt up a harddrive and the cable in an A1200 when hooking it up backwards.  Keep in mind that the 2.5" drives have power running through some of those wires.  If you get them backwards it can cause bad bad things.  Now... if we were talking about 3.5" drives I also have never damaged one by hooking up the cable backwards.

[Lando]

I have also caused a small fire in my A1200 by connecting the harddrive cable incorrectly.  The intense heat from the cable caused the plastic to ignite and a lot of black smoke.  Although the Amiga and the hard drive were ok just the cable was fubar.

[Matt_H]

I too have destroyed a 2.5" hard drive cable by plugging it in backwards. No damage to the drive or computer, though.

The red stripe should always be nearest Pin 1 (usually marked with a '1' on the PCB near the connector. I believe it's then a straight through connection to the drive (no twists in the cable). Be sure to test with the lid open in case something is backwards. :-o