2000xl formatting

Peace.

I recently installed a 100mb ZIP drive in my 2000xl. I tried formatting a zip disk and after formatting, it tells me that it is a 'PC' disk (as it was formatted when I got the disk) and not formatted as 'MPC2000XL' as it would say on my floppy disks. Either way, I'm able to save and load as normal. Is there something wrong though? I wonder if I put say a MAC disk in there and formatted would it tell me that the disk is formatted to Macintosh?? lol

no, it may not even be able to use the disk... you would likely have to format it again.. who knows though. just make sure you don't put that zip into a mac or else your data will get messed up. even just inserting it can mess up the files. try and use an old PC.

also, one thing that helps prevent data from getting messed up is making sure each file, sample, etc... are 8 characters long or less. This doesn't include the 3 letter extension after the dot (ie: .wav or .snd or .seq ... etc)

If you have a Zip drive on your computer, whether Mac or PC, it can be good practice to have a separate 'transfer' Zip disk, that you only use to transfer files to/from the computer and MPC, so that your important MPC data on the 'MPC only' Zips is not lost or corrupted with problems when being accessed by the computer.

Also, I think it is best to format it in the MPC, to MPC format, as it can be slightly different to a 'PC' formatted disc.

I suspect that a Mac formatted Zip disc would not be recognised by the MPC at all, as I think it uses a different format to the FAT based formatting on a PC.

I have an old computer with Windows XP on it. So I reformatted a few using FAT then tried putting those very disks on the MPC 2000xl then tried to format it. The MPC still reports it as them as PC disks. Again these disks seem to work fine so far. All the material I put on the disk is stuff I had already on an external JAZ drive which is formatted 'MPC2000XL'. I can manage since I have a few ways to stay backed up. However, I'd like to better ensure the stability of the zip disks so I don't even have to bother calling on my backups at all of possible. I like the idea of having one less thing to plug into the wall.

If that'll keep my files stable, works for me!

I almost clicked "like". Everything seems to work just fine over here.

auscience wrote:I recently installed a 100mb ZIP drive in my 2000xl. I tried formatting a zip disk and after formatting, it tells me that it is a 'PC' disk (as it was formatted when I got the disk) and not formatted as 'MPC2000XL' as it would say on my floppy disks. Either way, I'm able to save and load as normal. Is there something wrong though?

MPC2000XL OS 1.20 forces any drive on the IDE connector to format as a PC format, and as a single partition, up to a maximum of 1GB.

If you are running OS 1.20, and an IDE internal Zip drive, you can not format it as an MPC2000XL format, it forces it to a PC format.

You would be able to format it as an MPC2000XL format, with multiple partitions, on your internal IDE Zip drive, if you ran OS 1.14.

Not that it matters, as the PC format is working for you, just an explanation of why it is formatting as a PC format, while you are seeing the Jaz drive and floppies with an MPC2000XL format.

If you connected the Jaz drive, or any other internal/external SCSI drive, then the MPC would format it as MPC2000XL format.

Ahh okay thanks!! Something told me it was simply the fact that I switched to the 1.20 OS. (I should have mentioned the OS that I am running perhaps). Thanks again. Even though it works, this still bothered me a bit.