Small Form Factor SN45G HDD LED problems - this is a tough one I think.....

Hi All, I have recently purchased an SN45G but I made a LARGE error when I spec'd my system - I presumed that since the last XPC I built had SATA, they all have it and picked up 2 SATA hdds to run in a raid0.........when I came to build.......no SATA connectors

So I order a PCI SATA card for the 1 PCI slot on the mobo (I had other plans for the slot but thats life... ). So I build it and it worx (fast no SATA corruption and nearly silent ) So problem fixed I thaught............then I glanced at the front of the case......

No hdd activity light so no trigger for all the cool lighting mods I want to make

I checked for a connector on the SATA card (adaptec 1210SA) - none, I tried combinations of boot order in the bios - no go, I even looked on silicon Image controller website for a line on the controller I could hack into - can be done with a latch on the read and write strobe lines but requires a mod to the driver code to reset the latch (beyond my capabilities... )

Any ideas / circuits / mobo or pci card mods (anything??) would be GREATLY appreciated

Thanks in advance

 

iirc my sata pci card has some pins for adding an led, as i had exactly the same issue with my card...so i guess it depends on the card itself...

 

Thanks for the reply flix,

What card do you use (I guess it is in your hardware list but i don't recognise some of the items)?

I guess I could send the card back but I like its features...... especialy the ability to low level format the hdds

Do you know what SATA controller your card uses?

 

Update:

Yesterday evening I looked over my rig with a 'scope to find a signal that relates to hdd activity that I can use or convert to drive an activity led.

I found a pin on the jumpers connector on my hdd (Maxtor +9 SATA) just to the right of the standard 6 master / slave / csl jumper pins that seems to remain high (+3.3v) when the drive is idle and strobe high / lo during activity.

Does anyone have any advice on running this output through a standard TTL inverter and using it to drive an led (and perhaps a buffer / line driver for cold cathode).

I am keen to try this mod but I don't want to kill my drive. Does anyone have any tips??

Thanks.