Emax

I recently acquired an emax SE HD rack unit and I'm having a hard time getting the unit to read any hard disk or zip drive.

I have tried a couple scsi drives that have worked in my emax II.  When trying to format the drive it attempts to format for about 20 seconds then freezes on "Saving Bank".  And when attempting to copy software it just gives a hard disk error.  I don't even hear it accessing the hd at all.  The only action I get out of the hd is at boot spin-up.  And I get no reponse with any external zip drives either.

I am booting to floppy using the se hd os found in the files section here.

Any ideas on what I may be doing wrong?