Recommended Card Readers

sbaugnies wrote,

Damn...I'm pulling my hair out over here haha. I've been looking for weeks for the PERFECT card reader and there's always something that pops up. I'm reeeally not trying to spend 150 on a reader that's worth at most 40 or 50. The reason I want hot-swap ability is so that I can separate my songs on some cards and my sounds/programs on other cards. At this point, as long as it fits in the slot and doesn't stick out 2 inches and/or look like ****, and costs less then say 60 bucks if it's only CF and 80ish if it's multicard, I'll take it. I'd be really grateful if you or anyone else could just tell me exactly which reader yall are running on and where to snatch one. Thanks[/quote]



sbaugnies i got a card reader a few months back from Digital Era an it cost me £11.49 GBP, im not sure if they still have them but i found a link to the same CF reader im usin its not hotswappable in the mpc 2000xl but it has hotswap function on a PC it came with a driver disk.

mine works great on my 2000xl and it was cheap.
the reader will only read a Sandisk CF, i got a 4gb card but it will only read 1048.2mb just over a gig.
i recommend this reader the link is below, hope this helps you out.

one more thing to use it as a master that the 2000xl requires set the jumper to pins 2+3 .

http://www.alibaba.com/product-free/101 ... rives.html

sbaugnies wrote:
...
I've been looking for weeks for the PERFECT card reader and there's always something that pops up. I'm reeeally not trying to spend 150 on a reader that's worth at most 40 or 50.
The reason I want hot-swap ability is so that I can separate my songs on some cards and my sounds/programs on other cards.
...

Hot-swappable CF reader is not that useful, compared to non-swappable ones, because you cannot move ("copy & paste" on Windows) folders with 2000XL.

Once you've installed CF reader (either swappable or not), you can use your computer to "separate my songs on some cards and my sounds/programs on other cards", and it'll be much much faster to do it on computer. Actually XL is near useless to do such tasks, as only data management it can do are save, load, rename, create & delete files / folders.

well as someone that uses 2 cards and hotswap on a daily basis i must say it is very useful.

however, if i could use, say 16gb card, id probably be fine with it. having an 8gb folder for sounds and another 8gb free for a folder devoted to projects is not so bad.

id say if you are trying to save money go the cheap-non-hot-swap route and put the saved money to a bigger cf card.

otherwise just pony up and pay for the multicard drive - i dont think you are gonna find one much cheaper.

tapedeck wrote:well as someone that uses 2 cards and hotswap on a daily basis i must say it is very useful.

Yeah, sorry, I guess it is each his own... It can be very useful depends on your needs.
Anyway, if you are still using a zip drive with your XL, installing CF reader, regardless of hot-swappability, it'll be huge improvement for you.

JVC wrote:Anyway, if you are still using a zip drive with your XL, installing CF reader, regardless of hot-swappability, it'll be huge improvement for you.

amen.

Alright, so maybe hot-swapping isnt THAT essential...but if i were to cop a non HS ide card reader, id really like to be able to run say a 16gb cf card but partitioned into 15 or 16 1gig partitions like some of the guys on the forum are running. Anyone know of a card reader that'll be guaranteed to work properly with a 16gb card?

sbaugnies wrote:Alright, so maybe hot-swapping isnt THAT essential...but if i were to cop a non HS ide card reader, id really like to be able to run say a 16gb cf card but partitioned into 15 or 16 1gig partitions like some of the guys on the forum are running. Anyone know of a card reader that'll be guaranteed to work properly with a 16gb card?

NO, 16GB CF card will have only one 1GB partition on IDE CF reader (if the card is compatible with 2000XL, that is.)
Those larger partitioned CF cards are on SCSI port, or with ATAPI CF card reader (which is hot-swappable CF reader.)
The cheapest option is to use IDE CF reader, which is non-swappable (in this case, 2000XL sees CF card as IDE hard drive), so your CF card must be on XL before booting, and until turning off.
1GB is the maximum partition you can created with 2000XL with non-swappable CF card. 2000XL simply do not support larger partition for IDE device (for SCSI device, XL can support larger partition, that is reason why some XL users are using 16GB CF card with 16 partitions on it.)
For using non-swappable CF reader, you have to install OS 1.2. (the last 2000XL OS.) earlier 2000XL OS won't work with non-swappable CF reader.
If you don't think it'll be problem for you, you should get SCSI CF reader (which would work best, but very rare and very expensive of you find one) or ATAPI CF reader that works 2000XL (remember, most of ATAPI (hot-swappable) CF readers won't work with 2000XL. I'll have to get one that says 2000XL compatible, which usually cost around 100 bucks.)

Alright, got it. So just to make this short, can anyone here who is running a 16gb card with 1gig partitions please show me whatever drive you're running? I've looked everywhere but I can't find any surefire scsi drives that'll work. Bnradiosquad on ebay claims their drives only take up to 2gigs and the Addonics IDE - CF Adapter PRO is listed as being hot swappable, but there's no mention of size limitations...
. Besides the random parts here and there to build your own drive, surely there has to be a drive be it scsi or atapi (regardless of price) that is listed as being HS and 16gig friendly? If you guys could just either post a few links or PM them to me I'd really appreciate it. I just want to start finally making tracks on my 2000xl...

Addonics IDE (ATAPI) - CF Adapter PRO (hot-swappable IDE ATAPI CF card reader) does NOT work with XL. I know it for sure, I've tried! (Dawn, I still have it in a box, unused...)
If I were you, I'd just get a Addonics non hot-swappable IDE CF reader and get it done with it. You can get the Addonics IDE card reader AND a 2GB Sandisk CF card (the lowest capacity Sandisk CF card you can get new) under 50 bucks, and you are ready to work with XL, and transfer data between PC and XL. 1GB is a lot of space for XL.

Looooong time reader, first time poster.

Not sure if it's been brought up already but not sure why you guys are messing with installing/using cf cards which are hard to find and expensive nowadays. Of course i was messing around on the dreaded zip disc drive but THROUGH GOOGLING found a website that has scsi (for the 2000xl) to external flash hard drive. About $80-100 if i recall, but it's got loads and loads of space with many partitions, and have barely used up the first in months of sampling. They put it in an old metal cd drive chassis, but inside is flash, no moving parts = good.
They also have external card readers instead of messing with installing if you choose that route, but there's no real reason.

yabyum wrote:Looooong time reader, first time poster.

Not sure if it's been brought up already but not sure why you guys are messing with installing/using cf cards which are hard to find and expensive nowadays. Of course i was messing around on the dreaded zip disc drive but THROUGH GOOGLING found a website that has scsi (for the 2000xl) to external flash hard drive. About $80-100 if i recall, but it's got loads and loads of space with many partitions, and have barely used up the first in months of sampling. They put it in an old metal cd drive chassis, but inside is flash, no moving parts = good.
They also have external card readers instead of messing with installing if you choose that route, but there's no real reason.

do you have to power those units externally?

that's a good reason to want to go internal.

Yes, they are externally powered. A non-issue for me. But understand how that might be inconvenient. Looked at mine and it's 16gb. Once I use that up I would just get another. I know many people hate the 'bay but the seller is under mpcstoragesolution, they were friendly/quick. But prices may have gone up since I bought like a year or 2 ago

Hi, how are you?)))I have one question - If I buy this CF reader http://www.mpcstuff.com/2000xl-mcd-mult ... mlKingston
COuld I use this CF at it's full capacity - 133x Elite Pro 8GB

http://www.compuapps.com/index.php?opti ... Itemid=208


would this work?

Compton wrote:Hi, how are you?)))I have one question - If I buy this CF reader http://www.mpcstuff.com/2000xl-mcd-mult ... mlKingston
COuld I use this CF at it's full capacity - 133x Elite Pro 8GB

you would only be able to access 1048mb just over 1gb of the 8gb's of the card unless you're usin a scsi card reader usin 1gb partitions.