James' Tech Blog

By now you’re probably wondering what’s going on with my Seagate Dockstars. Well, the answer is awesomeness. Jeff has done a great job and built an updated U-Boot. This should take care of chainloading U-Boot. AKA I could install OpenWRT to MTD3 and pretty easily change what’s booting. He added netconsole support so I (or anyone else) don’t need the serial cable. You can get to U-Boot over the network.

Okay, what’s been going on on my end? I have gone through a couple revisions of how to power my Dockstar. First I made a switch-box that I could control power to the Dockstar and WD Elements. I cut up my AC adapter for my EEE 900A because it is 12V 3Amp. This is perfect for powering both the Dockstar and WD Element USB hard drive. One switch for Dockstar and one for WD Element. This way I could power them on and off independently.

Power switch-box

I have a couple old Xboxes from my days of Xbox hacking. I ended up with a mobo that didn’t have RAM. I was going to use the power-supply to power my beagleboard and a hard drive or 2, but that’s still in the works. I clipped the mobo connector off and soldered it up to a cheap perf-board. I hooked up a switch to the standby voltage and the on pin. This way I have a switch to turn on the power-supply whenever I want. You can see both in the picture below. I also tied in the original case fan. I’m pretty sure I’m going to need it.

Version 1.0 Xbox PSU

You can already see my Dockstar in the case along with the WD Element board. I used a SATA extension cable to hook up the hard drive and the board. I hooked up the power supply to the hard drive. I cut out part of the HDD tray to accommodate passing the SATA and power to the drive. There was not enough room behind the drive for the USB board and also getting power from the PSU means I had to do it this way.

Cutout in hard drive tray

With the HDD settled I added a plug to the 12V rail to power the Dockstar and WD Elements board. The USB board shouldn’t be drawing a lot of power off the 12V now. I’m pretty sure it’s fine off the USB port power, but I kept it connected to 12V. The Dockstar shouldn’t be pulling a lot off the 12V rail either. I’m pretty sure the original AC adapter was either 1.5 amps or 1amp. Yeah I know I switched wire color, but I made it so I know it’s 12V and also I didn’t have any yellow wire.

Power plug for switch-box

You can see my serial cable coming out the top. I had mentioned it in a previous post. Here are some pictures. First some of you might be wondering how to open a Seagate Dockstar. It’s super easy! If you squeeze the sides a little there will be room to jam in a guitar pick. You could use whatever you want, but a guitar pick is probably safest. Then gently pry around the edges till it comes apart.

How to open Seagate Dockstar

Then it looks a little like below. The board is screwed down to the bottom and the top just has the mini-USB cable attached. To connect to the serial pins I used a 3 wire cable that probably came off a mobo (used to hook up to audio headers on the mobo). I removed the mini-USB port from the Dockstar cause at this point I don’t need it and also I wanted to feed my serial cable out neatly.

Serial cable attached to Dockstar

I got a FTDI USB-to-serial cable to interface with the Dockstar. I made a little header board to connect my serial cable and the FTDI cable. It’s not a 1-to-1 hookup, but it’s close. I only had to jump one pin, the TX.

Serial Port to USB header board

Okay, with all that done. It’s time to throw it all in the case and hope for the best. For the second HDD I used a Bytecc USB to eSATA bridge adapter. This is a pretty good shot of all of what’s going on. I have a ethernet cable coming out the back where it would have for a real Xbox. I fed the serial cable and a male/female USB cable out one of the control port openings. The second HDD is a 1TB WD10EACS 7200RPM and I think 64MB cache. It’s a beast of a drive. I’m hoping it’s faster than the one from the Element. That brings me up to 2TB with the possibility to add more outside the case quickly/easily.

Open case of Xbox Dockstar

I think the Xbox PSU is probably maxed out. I know it’s got something insane like 13amps on the 5V, but I think it’s only got a few on the 12V rail. There is a good possibility that I could swap one of the HDD for a DVD-burner though. I have a PATA drive and a crappy USB to SATA/PATA adapter. The SATA just plain doesn’t work, but the PATA works just fine. I don’t remember the brand, but it’s got a JMicron 20337 chip in it that totally sucks!

DVD-RW PATA to USB

What do I have in mind for future hardware mods? Hopefully get a PSU from mini-box.com. They have some good PSUs that would easily fit in the Xbox case and provide enough power for what I’ve got. Maybe even both HDD and the DVD-burner. Who knows?