Difficulty in recognising lots of drives

[Megatron-uk]

Hi, I've got a slim PS2, with a DMS SE Pro and HD Connect kit fitted. For booting games I use Toxic OS.

I've been using a 2.5" 320GB IDE drive, mounted in place of the dvd mechanism, for some time now, and the only reason I'm trying to use another one is because it's full.

I've tried the following drives and none of them are recognised or show as connected:

1. 3.5" Western Digital Caviar Blue 500GB PATA (WD5000AAKB)
2. 3.5" Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 320GB PATA (ST3320620A)
3. 3.5" Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 500GB SATA (ST3500630AS) (with SATA/PATA adapter)

This (1) is a brand new disk, bought specifically for the PS2, I formatted it (Toxic OS 48bit extended) and copied over all of my installed games using Winhiip. No issues whatsoever. However I transfer it to the PS2 and it does not get detected either by Toxic OS, or if I load uLaunchelf from memory card, and no games are listed.... but if I put it back in the PC it's fine; Winhiip still lists all the contents ok.

This one (2) is a known-working disk, it's recently come out of my XBox. Again, it's not detected and I don't get any prompt for me to format it. Back in the XBox or PC and it shows up fine.

I tried this one (3) (a new, unused, spare from an array), just for comedy value... no difference to the other two PATA drives.

What is bizarre, however, is the list of drives that I *have* been able to get working:

4. 2.5" Western Digital Caviar Blue 320GB PATA (WD32000BEVE)
5. 2.5" Toshiba 4.3GB PATA (MK4313MAT)
6. 3.5" IBM Deskstar 40GB PATA (IC35L040AVVA07)

This one (4) is the current drive I have been using - it works fine in and out of the PS2, no issues with Winhiip etc. If i put the drive back in the PS2 it still detects it and lists all the installed games, so it's not as if I have damaged the HDConnect cables.

This one (5) is an ancient drive I took out a laptop years ago. It's currently in Linux ext3 format; Toxic OS detects it and asks if I want to format it. So no problems with its detection.

An original IBM 'Deathstar' (6), actually from the first XBox I modded back in 2002. Still partitioned and formatted for the XBox - it was detected and I was prompted to format.

Has anyone come across PS2 hard drive detection problems like this before? I've tried different power supplies for the drives (both the HDConnect power brick and an external disk enclosure with it's own PSU), different PATA cables (the short stumpy HDConnect one that works with the WD3200BEVE, a longer 80 wire ATA133 cable, a single ended 8" ATA133 cable, an old 40 wire cable..., no difference, and the original drive works with them all).
I really need to fit a larger capacity drive, but at the moment the compatability with anything modern other than the 2.5" 320GB drive is looking really poor

Any suggestions at all would be greatly appreciated!

John

[Megatron-uk]

Well, I have not been able to find any other modern drives that worked with my PS2.

I've ended up buying another 2.5" WD3200BEVE and putting it, along with the existing one in a single 3.5" external enclosure, with a 2 way switch to power either the first or second drive. The new drive was detected first time.
The setup works fine and I've got enough space to put plenty more games on each drive now (splitting them A-L, M-Z).

Still have no idea why none of the other drives I've tried will not work though.