Recommended hard drive for katana dev unit

It seems my katana unit's hard drive has finally died, as only the debug adapter is recognized by the PC and the last thing GD workshop told me was that there was an error to do with the FAT system on the drive...

Seeing as it can't be detected I can't really reformat it, so I'm going to try taking the unit apart and connecting the drive directly, if it uses the same scsi connectors as I have for the actual unit itself.
But what hard drives can I use to replace it?

The unit seems stuck in emulation mode and I can hear the hard drive power up when the unit powers up, but it will hang at the Dreamcast logo trying to load the last project on boot.

EDIT: (This might have been better in the repair and conservation forum...)

 

You can open it up and make sure the SCSI connection from the drive hasn't come loose on the sub board it connects to. Seems to be a common issue.

Also you can get a 2.5" SATA to 3.5" SCSI enclosure that will allow you to use modern drives. The enclosures are 200-300$ but finding a suitable SCSI drive will be very expensive anyways and at least you could reuse the enclosure if the SATA drive dies on down the road.

Check out the old katana threads on here for specifics of what drives will work.

 

Any old 9.1GB SCSI drive should do I reckon.
I've got a spare IBM one from an old server if you're nearby in the UK, you can have it for free, I'd even re-image it from my katana kit if there's files that you need for it to work.

Otherwise, ebay. You can pick them up for £10 a pop probably.

 

Hey, thanks for the offer! I did get it fixed though, the thread has been weird since it got moved to the repair forum.

 

Another option is the SCSI2SD board, which works perfectly as a drop in replacement: http://www.codesrc.com/mediawiki/index.php?title=SCSI2SD

 

Thanks for the link !
Works perfectly... so you did try it with a katana devkit ?

 

Yup works great.

 

Ssd?

 

Micro SD card

 

2-3 weeks before your answer, I decided to try it out & ordered one.
Received without problems, updated the firmware,
changed some settings (the size of the SD card + selected SCSI-2 instead of the default SCSI1)...
and everything seems to work fine with my devkit indeed
Thanks again for the tip !

 

No problem! Glad it was useful information for you.

 

Resurrection of this thread to keep things together & stop the hijacking of the other thread...

Yes it worked / works.
I haven't tested making a project in GDWorkshop, but it passed all the checks of the DACheck utilitiy.
If you remember after which action(s) it failed on your devkit, we might try to reproduce that to see if it there is the same issue on other devkits.

 

Not cheap indeed, but comparable to other ODE boards, while having a much longer compatibility list than specialized ODE boards...
(if you're into old computers, music samplers & other devices with a SCSI drive...)

The "inertial computing (USA)" link has an ebay offer for 63 usd with a 4GB SD card included (without shipping costs)

 

can I use it for Xbox or PS2 (replace IDE HDD)?

 

Hello to all,

Sorry I'm bumping this old thread but I need some advice for my Dev. Box too
My SCSI hard drive just died today. I saw this interesting thread about the SCSI2SD adapter - because paying about 400 EUR for an old 4.5GB SCSI HD is just impossible (and I don't get it: why these HD are so expensive?!).

Should I buy the SCSI2SD V5 or V6? Because they seems really differents (even the price!). What do you think?

Thank you very much for your help!
Mike

 

Personally, I would try the V6 if I didn't have a V5 already (V6 was not available at the time).
The biggest improvement seems to be the max speed.
I don't know if the devkit supports this completely (I would hope so, but haven't benchmarked it) / if you will see any difference compared to a V5, but I like to buy hardware that can offer me a max of features, even if I don't use it in a near future.
Mind you, I've read no reports yet of the V6 having been tested with a devkit, so you're taking a (small) risk...

 

Hello T_chan and a big thank you for you answer!

OK so I understand well, the V5 is fully compatible with the Dev. Box, but nobody has tested the V6?
I'm going to take the risk for science (and for fixing my sick Dev. Box )!

I'll post the update here, and the shopping list to get it working, since the SCSI2SD is just a board, so I think I'm missing some components to fit it in place

 

"V5 is fully compatible" -> Personally I've only done a DACheck with a V5 & everything was green, so for me that's a pretty good indication that everything is OK, but I never launch(ed) GDWorkshop with that, so I can't tell how that works / confirm that it is "fully" compatible.

Thanks for taking the risk, I might buy a V6 at some point to try it in another devkit, so I'm curious

 

Oh I see, but GD Workshop allows us to make "virtual" GD, right? So if I want to compile and debug something, I need to use that tool? And we don't know if it works?

I sent a message to the SCSI2SD creator in order to know when the V6 should be available. If you can, and want to, try GD Workshop with SCSI2SD, by compiling some SDK sample, I'll be very happy and thankful!