Exchange tips and tricks for the Akai MPC4000
By loopdigga420 Wed Feb 26, 2025 2:02 am
Hello everyone,

I have this odd issue, ever since I installed an IDE to HD adapter to get an SSD into my MPC4k, the MPC hangs for about 30 seconds on boot until it gives up on finding a hard drive. Then about 30 seconds later, the SSD pops up along with the CD drive.

I'm pretty sure I have the master/slave set right, but maybe not? It seems like it's just a weird issue with it taking a while to recognize.

This is mainly bothering me because it doesn't allow me to use the autoload folder feature, not a big dealbreaker to wait minute and then load up an autoload folder manually, just seems weird to me that it wouldn't see the ssd right away.

Any ideas?
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By Telefunky Wed Feb 26, 2025 11:55 am
A very similar phenomenon exist on old Macs (OS9) when replacing the internal HD by a combo of IDE to SATA converter plus an SSD.
It first indicates boot failure (no drive) and then on a 2nd attempt finds the SSD.

Imho it‘s specific to the chipset of the adapter, but there‘s hardly any information about these cheapo parts.
Best approach might be to pick another one that‘s visually very different from the one you have.
By loopdigga420 Fri Feb 28, 2025 5:50 pm
Appreciate the intel.. you are most likely spot on with this. Maybe I'll have to try and replace that IDE to SATA and report back sometime..

Only other issues I've noticed..
- It takes like 3 times as long to create a folder on the drive then it does to save a project.
- Sometimes when scanning through the folder directory, the same folder will display on both sides of the load window.

I think I formatted the drive on the MPC.. I wonder if it would be worth backing up the drive contents and reformatting on my Mac?
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By Telefunky Fri Feb 28, 2025 7:34 pm
Old or new Mac ? in case of new (self quote from another thread):
Telefunky wrote:check this link about cleaning the CF card from Mac specific stuff (invisible files) written every time a card is connected to a Mac.
https://macpaw.com/how-to/clean-sd-card ... formatting


Dunno with which OS version this virtual plague did start.
All kind of drives are affected, pen, hd, ssd... so before each and every unmount (from the Mac) one has to run the „cleaner“ :Sigh:

I‘m happy with a PowerMac G4 (20 bucks from local recycling) to run AK.sys in MacOS 9.
It‘s not perfect (on bulk conversion of CD libs it may skip files occasionally, but it‘s so slow anyway that I don’t mind to manually check content of source versus copy per folder).