RA81 cable issue

I see now why the number of cables is an issue. I rang out the bulkhead connectors and they aren't straight through in the sense that pin1 on one side doesn't go to pin1 on the other side. It presents a mirror image of the lines on the other side of the connector - in other words the pins truly are "straight through", not in the numbering sense. As a result, I'm sure it DOES matter how many cables you have (or another way of looking at it, it matters how many bulkhead connectors you go through). I don't know if the device is expecting a mirror image end to end or a "straight through" end to end. But obviously the number of bulkhead connectors you go through affects which order the pins show up on the far end. So with regard to the last cable inside the drive sometimes coming out of the drive as a long cable and sometimes ending as a connector on the back of the drive... I hooked it up the way that made sense to me based on the above and diags didn't see the drive. I inserted an additional bulkhead connector and cable and voila - diags see the drive now. This problem was exacerbated by the fact that port A on my drive doesn't work, only port B does. This made the cabling issue seem more mystifying. Interestingly enough, the way I originally hooked it up is exactly how it is pictured in the manuals. But I had to add an extra cable/bulkhead connector for the controller to see the drive. Thanks for all the input folks. I'm not out of the woods yet though, the drive still has various problems but I'll address them one at a time. Jay West