Internal SCSI HD in Akai S3000/S3200

got the s1100 afterall. figured it all out.

either an OS disk to boot or change the eproms with latest os version

I know no-one's probably following this one, but....can anyone tell me if it's OS2.0 that makes the SCSI work? I tried rocking a SCSI CF reader with 1.0 and it hangs on boot.

Hey there,

No, your S3200 will boot just fine without upgraded OS chips. My S3200 has V1.30 OS ROMs installed, my S3000 has V1.01 ROMs, and they both recognize the MO disk just fine, as well as many other types of SCSI disk.

With the S3200, there's room to install am MO drive and keep the floppy drive too. Just take off the front panel and pop out that MO drive bay cover. Then you can, for example, load OS2.00 from floppy and save it onto an MO disk. It's pretty flexible having the floppy drive still there.

As long as you save the OS to partition 'A', volume 1 of the MO disk, the OS will load itself from MO when you power on the machine (assuming you left the MO disk in the drive).

Theres a very important point I should make about putting any kind of internal SCSI disk into the S3200/S3000/S2800 though - and I have repeated it below the quote - you MUST connect the SCSI cable to the internal SCSI port UPSIDE-DOWN... or the machine will freeze every time.... see below.

soundtech wrote:Hello! Thanks for the post. I am still interested in this.

I'm just about to buy an s3200. I understand u need a chip with the os 2.0 for the sampler to boot if you replace the floppy drive with an MO.

Does that mean if u keep the floppy drive only you always need a disk with the os into the floppy drive so the akai can boot the os? Or how does it work?

How easy is it to install the os chip inside?

Thanks

INTERNAL SCSI CONNECTION ON S3200 / S3000 / S2800 SAMPLERS:

The reason for your problems is this - the internal SCSI port on the IB301S SCSI card (which is what you will have in your S3200 unless you have the Mutec SCSI card) is, well, back-to-front, or upside-down. The plastic 'key' that stops you from putting the SCSI cable in upside down is simply in the wrong place - and seems to be on every IB301S card I've owned.

(The IB301S is the card that has a blue 'Centronics' SCSI connector on the outside of the machine and a 50-way internal connector on the opposite end, inside the machine)

This design flaw freezes the machine as soon as the S3200 attempts to access the SCSI bus. But it doesn't seem to cause any damage, like blowing the SCSI fuse for example.

The solution:
File away the plastic 'key' that protrudes from the SCSI cable, just at the end that plugs into the SCSI card. Now plug the SCSI cable into that port 'upside down'. Job done.

Obviously this does not affect the external port, that one is wired up OK:)

I can't say exactly which card readers work on the S3200 because I use MO drives in mine, but I'm almost certain that they will work on the S3200 if they work on XL models.

I have a mutec SCSI card here too, and the internal connector looks to be wired in the same way, but I have yet to test it with an internal device.

This will also apply to the other models that use the same IB301S SCSI card: S2800, S2800i, S3000, S3000i (and maybe the CD3000?) when using any kind of internal SCSI device.

I was about to throw an MO drive in the bin before I discovered this:)

Let me know if this helps,

Matt

Hello,
Long shot, but I wonder if anyone can give me some advice on using a SCSI drive with my S3000.

I’ve been using an external SCSI CF Card reader with my MPC3000 for several months now – and it works perfectly. It works with the S3000, (I can save and load samples to the drive), but it’s a bit temperamental with the S3000.

I’m setting the both SCSI ID and Local SCSI ID to 0. But if I try to ‘format’ or ‘arrange’ the drive I get a message saying “FORMAT ERROR!”.

Similarly, when I reload samples, the S3000 will normally pull them up ok. But after loading a few, it will say “HARD DISK DRIVE NOT READY!” – then I have to switch the whole thing off.

Am I doing something wrong here? Any tips would be really appreciated!

You can't have two scsi devices with the same number on the same piece of equipment, scsi id and local scsi id are two different devices, for instance my s3000xl has a 2.17 gB internal HDD which is designated scsi id0, and an external 1gB jaz drive which is local scsi id7. Hope that helps

Thanks for your reply - I'll give that a go!

mrlogic wrote:You can't have two scsi devices with the same number on the same piece of equipment, scsi id and local scsi id are two different devices, for instance my s3000xl has a 2.17 gB internal HDD which is designated scsi id0, and an external 1gB jaz drive which is local scsi id7. Hope that helps

Isn't the Local SCSI ID setting there to set the SCSI ID of the internal sampler SCSI interface?

But yes, different SCSI ID numbers for each device on the SCSI chain, including the sampler's internal SCSI interface.

Yes you are correct, I got them the wrong way round, local scsi is internal and scsi is external, and you can chain up to seven scsi devices as the akai device numbers go from 0-7, 0 being the internal drive and 1-7 for the external devices, my jaz drive is 7 because it's a temperamental sod and that's the only number it runs on lol. P.S. you're probably aware of this but never connect or disconnect an external scsi device with the sampler powered up, it will blow the scsi fuse and you will get hard disc error every time you boot up, mine was already blown when I bought it on ebay, and it's a pain in the arse to replace, it involves removing the circuit boards and soldering in a new one.

Can someone advise me which power cable I need to connect this MO drive to the s3200xl:



So would I need a molex female to floppy female?

I personally wouldn't bother with any internal storage options on the 3200, hard drives are noisy, annoying, prone to failure especially if the sampler is moved and bashed about in the rack and limited to 512MB due to the software in the Akai.
Stick to ZIP disks unless you can afford a CF reader, why? Cheap, readily available and easy to archive.

hi VJ thanks for your answer
i think i'll go like you said for something external
would a normal external scsi drive also work ? or should it better be a zip drive like you mentioned ?
thanks