Trouble with SATA-IDE converter(s)

[cylch]

I'm struggling to get SATA drive(s) working in my 6300.

Has anyone had success with the http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/7-15P-Serial-ATA-SATA-to-PATA-IDE-3-5-Adapter-Converter_W0QQitemZ180412620370QQcmdZViewItemQQptZUK_Computing_CablesConnectors_RL?hash=item2a016e1e52

This adapter is discussed in http://kafkasworld.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=6622, and
I bought it about the same time.

Originally I fitted a modified bi-directional adapter, such as

http://www.uauctionsource.com/picture/SKU008171_1.jpg

(modifying it to fit vertically by de-mounting the SATA connector and fitting a perpendicular one from Farnell, and similarly with the power (which was way harder than the SATA connector!) attaching it to a WD6400AARS (Caviar Green). I was still suffering from random lockups and assumed this was down to the warnings in other threads about the "bi-directional ones from fleabay". I also wondered about the power saving modes of the Caviar Green drive in case they were causing problems. I chose the WD drive for quietness and coolness, but didn't realise they did a reaonable priced AV version until after. So I had two sources of doubt, and a really elegant mod (the lid fit perfectly).

With that in mind, I got the second adapter, but the chinglish instructions also suggest it is bi-directional and I can't get the DTI6300 out of standby.

To try and eliminate the drive I've moved (a lot of) data around and managed to pull a Samsung HD753LJ from a machine for testing. But it still doesn't work! So I'm back wondering if the SATA-IDE adapter is causing problems.

It did seem to manage to create a partition table on the HD753LJ, but I don't think it had built a file system properly.

What I also noticed, plugging a USB-IDE cable into the "7-15P-Serial-ATA-SATA-to-PATA-IDE-3-5-Adapter" was that the Samsung drive wasn't very happy attached this way. My logs showed that the USB connection was timing out. The WD drive on the other hand was a lot more "stable" (again via USB-IDE to 7-15P....), but not perfect.

Just to help things along, I created proper filesytems on the HD753LJ leaving the partition table as the DTI6300 had mad them (mke2fs -L STDFS /dev/sdb1; mke2fs -L AVFS /dev/sdb3) but the unit still won't come out of standby. I'm therefore back wondering if I have a bad adapter and possibly an incompatible drive (the WD).

I know that both SATA drives are good on their own, as shutting down a desktop machine, I can plug both drives in to native SATA interfaces and they can be accessed fine. This is also how I manually fixed up the data on the WD drive after the first adapter was flaky (and populated it the first time by dd'ing from the old IDE drive, which was loud and crashy).

I've also tried jumpering the WD6400AARS into SATA1 only mode, but that didn't work at all via my USB cable, and I guess wasn't working in the STB either.

I've also modified the PSU with all uprated capacitors before embarking on the HDD upgrade, as several had blown and the rest I didn't trust. I now seem to have come full circle and still don't have it working! Any ideas or recommendations?

[adie.1]