Today I was testing all of my SCSI equipment I've bought during the last months 😀 I missed the SCSI completely, until I became the real system administrator in late 2000-s, but that was a time of SAS, nothing interesting. So I wanted to add a touch of SCSI to some of my builds.

1. For 486 I've got a strange Xirlink XL-221 ISA adapter that has one internal 50 pin narrow SCSI connector and one (probably) DB-25 that is unsoldered for some reason.
2. For Pentium (MMX) build I've got an ordinary Adaptec 2940 that was a companion to Sony SDT-7000 streamer. Narrow 50 pin cable, both seem working.
3. For Pentium II (III) build I've got very cheap LSI PCI-X raid controller that works on standard PCI board to my surprise. I was expecting problems there.

As for disks I have two WD 4360 (4.3G) with SCA-80 connectors, one IBM 18GB with 68 pin connector and three 73GB with SCA-80 (I want to put two of them in RAID-1).

I tried to put one of WD 4360 to XirLink-221 via SCA 80 / IDC 50 adapter without any success. One of the disk spindles up (though with some strange nosie), another one doesn't.
On the other hand, XL-221 complains on the cable that is "disconnected or reverse". I put SDT-7000 with terminator on the end of my 50-pin cable but the warning remains the same, though that works with Adaptec 2940. I tried several pins combinations like 'Delay Start', 'Don't negotiate Bus width' and so on. SCA-80 devices don't have their terminators and this HD has 16 bit bus but I suppose this one should be working nice with narrow 50 adapters, there were several types of that HDD with both narrow/wide bus. But it doesn't. So I think both WDs and the adapter are broken.

18GB 68 pin drive is detected on both Adaptec and LSI hosts but with 0 size. I need to dig more into that.

All of 73GB devices were tested and spindle the disk If I use my SCA-80/IDC-50 adapter but are not recognized. I doubt they can become 8 bit devices. I'm waiting for two more adapters SCA-80/HD-68 and hope they will work there with my terminated cable.

Dealing with old hardware is something like 75/25% game in my case 😀