Card reader

so I bought this MPC 2000xl off ebay and it said that it came with a card reader installed. when I power up the machine it tells me that i can't save, but one of the options is "Atapi." I'm wondering if that's the card reader? and will i have to open up the MP and put a memory card in?

Moved to the 2000 forum, those guys should be able to help...

atapi is what you want to access your card reader.
There should be a slot (or slots) set into the front panel (the plastic bit).
One of those should take your CF card.






It'll look something similar to this....



Now put a card in.

The thing is, i don't have a slot like that. It's just the regular one with an opening for the zip disk. So do i need to take off the bottom panel in order to insert my card?

Then you have a zip drive on your atapi, not a card reader.


The bottom drive in the picture.







only other option would be if you had an SSD mounted internally that takes a CF card. If you did it would work through
one of the SCSI channels (0 / 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 7 ), so check them too.

Why not ask the seller?

Thanks. I did but they never got back to me. So what's the purpose of a zip drive atapi? is that something that the seller would've had to install?

They may have installed it but then again it could be an original part depending which model it was when new.
Sounds like the seller didn't know what a card reader or zip drive were and gave you false info on it.

Zip drive does the same job as a card reader, saves and reloads data, but is older technology and less reliable.

Is the different of capacity. You Floppy Drive only support Disk with 1,44MB, the most zip drive 100mb and more, dont know but i mean up to 750mb?! and the card reader goes up to 2gb cf.
if u got a 2kxl, look for some pc card reader in size 3,5". i buy one for 30€ (around 25$) and it works great. the only disadvantage is, that the reader is not hot swappable, u cant change card while the mpc is on

OR maybe the seller made his own CF card reader using the ZIP drive enclosure, thing is you would need to recognize different kind of media...

Check this video, in here this guy explains how he made a DIY CF card reader for $20, maybe this is exactly what you have installed in your MPC

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-a7nvLlyBg

Edited: If you can post some pics of your drive would help a lot, front and also open the drive and try to take pics of inside the drive so we can see if there is the CF card reader PCB installed.