so you have an external SCSI case of uncertain origin in which you have wired a hard drive, right?
here's a mini-walkthrough:
there are a few things you need to do to get such a beast to work. first off, you need two cables, power and SCSI. (i assume you have a SCSI port on your comp? do you have an old Mac or a new Mac with a SCSI card?).
the next thing you need is to set the termination. this is a key property of setting up SCSI devices. you need termination on each end of your SCSI chain, and if you have termination somewhere in the middle you will have serious problems. Some SCSI devices have built-in termination. These devices will have a switch at the back to turn termination on or off. If your devices have such switches, you want to set every one to "Off" except for the last one in the chain, which must have termination On. if your devices do not have termination switches, then you need to connect an external terminator to the out of the last device in your SCSI chain. such an item must be purchased or dug out of a closet, and I have no idea how availability is these days (whether they even make them anymore). if you're in this situation then you want to do a search of macmall.com or some site likethat for "SCSI terminator."
the next important property of SCSI connections is Device ID's. You can have at most 8 devices on a SCSI chain, and each must have a unique ID # (0 through 7). The Computer Itself is always 7. an internal HD on the SCSI bus is usually 0. you can check all of the devices on your SCSI bus with the System Profiler. make sure all of the device IDs for all of your SCSI periphs are different. these generally can be set by switches on the backs of the drives (usually very near the termination switch).
so you've got all the hardware set up, and now how do you get the computer to recognize the drive? uh... you need drivers for the driver, or you need to have a system folder on the hard disk. case 1: you have the drivers for the drive you installed in the SCSI case. install them on your comp. everything should work fine. as a general rule of thumb, power up all SCSI drives before booting the computer, and don't turn off/unplug them while the comp is on. [these rules can be broken— I always do— but I don't recommend it if you aren't very familiar with your SCSI.] case 2: you don't have the happy drivers. if you're in OS 9.1, the generic drivers will probably be sufficient for your drive. but there is a real possibility you won't be able to use the drive. post back.
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