Instaling an internal zip or perhaps a hard drive in a MPC

nuttzoid wrote:i tried asking about this same topic a little while ago. i've got a 100meg internal SCSI zip drive sitting around because i've been trying to find out how to modify my original cables or if i can buy the proper cabling somewhere. i've asked around a lot and i can't get a straight answer to save my life. crapp.

here is the answer to your question. the search function of this site brings up too many results so i know it's hard to narrow down an exact topic but it is out there.

http://www.mpc-forums.com/viewtopic.php ... ght=#60265

i've done it myself.. just a little soldering is involved to conect your new power cable to the pre-exsisting one inside the mpc but it's easy and you don't have to spend 30bucks for a zip install kit.

i hear you guys on the partitions but i'm sure that if you installed the HD into a computer and used a program like CDXtrack, Awave or Chicken Translator you could view all the samples and back them up.

is there anyone out there that can give me a straight answer to my hardware issues?


1-0ne

-{n8}- wrote:again.. i hate repeating myself but is anyone going to answer my question earlier about the power for the internal HD? what about the zip and HD together installed on the same machine?

is this like a trade secrete or something? or is the question just being avioded?

with the amount redundant stuff people keep asking on this site again and again.. i guess this one catches you cats off guard.

anyway... when i get this sorted out for myself, i might be kind enough to share my findings. i have some ideas of what should be going on but i thought to check here first before i went ahead.

for now though, anyone looking for info on internal HD instals.. good luck.


1-0ne

-{n8}- wrote:again.. i hate repeating myself but is anyone going to answer my question earlier about the power for the internal HD? what about the zip and HD together installed on the same machine?

1-0ne

Does anyone know about this? Can you have two drives connected to the power supply inside the MPC?

ie. Card Reader & Hard Drive powered from the motherboard.

funny you should bring that up again

as you can see this is something i've been considering for awhile. well, i eventually found out what i needed to know about the internal HD install.

i was able to have my mpc working with both an internal zip and HD. i this without any modification of cables or the mother board.

how i arrived at that solution was kind of interesting. first i located the internal 12v power source i would need to power my HD.



the cable connecting closest to the outside of the board is for the floppy (5v) and the one next to it, soldered directly into the board with a plastic square, is the a (12v) power supply. tracing what was linked to this source, i conclude that this was intended to power the mother board components. for this reason i did not want to take the risk routing power away from this source or make any changes that could compromise the machines performance.

what i was able to do without any modification of the internal structure, was hook up the HD to the internal SCSI slot (located at the bottom far right of this picture) powered by an external 12v power supply.


it worked like a charm.

however there are some things to take into consideration before attempting this mod.
1) over heating is primarily the major concern.
2) routing power away from the mother board could have serious repercussions.

if you are really bent on getting this mod done my recommendation would be to install an additional 12v power supply (get one at any local radio shack) along with your HD. with that you would have enough juice to run the HD and then some. if you are really keen you could install a switch to shut of the HD separately when it is not in use (the noise will drive you madd) and you might even want to install a fan for the heat (you would have to cut out a hole in the casing but that's better than soldering).

good luck, hope my recommendation help.


1-0ne

p.s in regards to your question about having also a card reader instead of the zip. i believe that would work as well so long as..
1) the drive is adapti
2) OS 1.20 is installed

great info....

How did you get the external 12V power supply to the drive?

Cut a hole in the back?

well in regards to the power supply, i had my mpc open and i ran the power cable directly to the HD and the SCSI cable from the drive to the mpc's SCSI internal input.

i did not complete the install, but again it would require that you at least cut a hole in the case so that the power button, fan, and power supply cable will have easy access to the machine. there is a wide open area beside the current power supply for you to run the necessary cables through.

you can place your HD around where the flash rom would normally go.

and if you look in the upper right hand portion of this picture, you will see you could have your power supply beside where the current one is; however, this area is already prone to alot of heat from the screen so another potential area for placement of the power supply could be at the bottom beside the floopy bay.

take in mind also that over heating is still a major concern but if you take the necessary provisions to install a separate power button for the HD with a fan, the danger will be minimized. i'd still have the switch and the fan at the top near the current power supply for easy access. your additional power supply could be place wherever you can find space. you'll simply need to run a cable to it.

another thing to note is proper mounting of the HD and power supply. if you fail to provide extra supports for your new components there is a potential risk that they may come undone when transporting your mpc. you'll need to drill some holes and/or add more bracers to fit your components to. in mpc3000's install, he added extra hole to the bottom case panel which added the nessessary support. depending on the power supply you get and it's size and location it might require a different accomidation.


1-0ne

Thanks man...... I would like to have a Hard Drive, but I'm not sure if I want to cut up the back of the MPC at this point..... it would be nice to get the power internally, but I don't want to blow any fuses.

Thanks again for the info.

lol!! yah that's the same reason i have not done it myself. right now i am rocking the external HD, which for me works well enough.

for what it is worth, i would rather have the card reader installed anyway. as the size of card capacity gets bigger the price will get lower. in fact, that form of media is widely used by the general public in all forms of home electronic devices such as digital cameras, mp3 players etc. and is readily available (unlike the dwindling number of SCSI devices).

now what would be interesting is a card reader and zip in the same machine?


1-0ne

Why not avaiod all the hassel in that mod and use ur PCD drive as a part HD? U can get PCMCIA HD cards. Im about to get a 2Gb one and use that as my HD and use CF's as my data transfer medium...I've jus got hold of an external scsi card reader (keeping zip installed...Plus I still got my SCSI HD which I'll use as my back up vault)...If I get my hands on an xchange lead, I'll try and USB it to my Comp. If drag and drop works that way, I dont need to go the CF reader to transfer blah blah route

Didn't really plan to get amongst the MCD revoulution but things are coming my way so Im taking advantage....

Anyway, Just my 2pennies

BRAVO wrote:Why not avaiod all the hassel in that mod and use ur PCD drive as a part HD?

no doubt, that's probably what I'll do. I just thought it would be cool to have the internal hard drive, but the risks of this install don't seem worth it.

seth column wrote:the crappy thing about large scsi harddrives is that you can only make the partitions with mpc if you want the all the partitions to be readable by mpc. AND partitions are 880 mb each ( thats the biggest partitions mpc can read) SO with a 26gb drive you end up having 30 partitions and that sucks. and if you make the partitions with a pc you can only make one partition that will be recognized by the MPC AND that cant be larger then 880 mb, with the nice fact that if you make the partitions using mpc, your pc can read only the first partition, which means NO backing up the rest of the partitions.
I wonder if that www.mpc2000xl.com dude could write a program to make pc be able to read the akai partitions?

You want too much.

Ask yourself, "Am I really going to use that whole 26gb."
Folders are there to help organize not to impair like cryptonite.

a quick calculation: the max memory you can use to make a composition on your mpc is 32 Mb, 320 Mb holds 10 songs (extremely big ones ) so roughly said 1 gig will hold 31 songs so 4 gigs set you back for 124 songs that youse your full memory. I think that you did a pretty good job if you filled your harddisk with 124 songs. I wish I had the time the skills and the creativity to do that