MPC2500 Hard drive not seen!

Can anyone help? I bought a new MPC2500 and proceeded to max it out so inserted new memory card, CD drive and ordered a 160GB hard drive but when I insert the drive the MPC doesn't see it. I spoke to an Akai technician who suggested I format the drive on my mac, this I did... and still nothing. Thinking it may be a fault with either the tray or the HDD itself, I replaced both so now with a new drive (WD Scorpio Blue 2.5" IDE) AND a completely new tray, I still get nothing when I insert them. From "mode/pad 2" all the machine sees is the memory card. Any suggestions?

I was going to say your cd drom drive is set to master instead of slave that's why it dont see hard disk...but from your description seems like it's not seeing cd drom neither ?

Well, it sees the CD ROM... that shows up when the machine is booting... so does the 128MB card. Do you think the problem lies with the CD ROM then somehow? If so, would you have a solution? Thanks!

how about when machine is booted up ?

When the machine first boots, the display shows first the 128MB card is installed then a second or two later, that there is a CD drive also installed. From there it goes to the default sample window (Now 001.01.00 Sq 01-111 Hip_Hop is highlighted).

From there, If I hit "MODE" Pad 2, it shows Load from Memory card. and the tabs along the bottom are LOAD/SAVE/UTILITY/USB. {space} DO IT

No Hard drive

but can you toggle to cd drom in there or only memory card ?....you might gotta pull the the cd drom drive and make sure you got get the pin mode done...this could be why you dont see hard drive cuz cd drom is acting as master

No, it was only the memory card. But I get what you're telling me so I got on it and your advice paid off! I now can see the hard disc. Maybe there are format issues with it cos if I try and load a sample to the HDD I get "DISC IS FULL" come up. I know the disc is empty (brand new) so yeah, that's where I'm at now. Guess I need to pull the HDD again and re-format it. Is it FAT for MS do you know? (I use iMac disc utility).

Anyway, thanks for your help man!

Like your signature gif btw ; )

thanks and no problem...I believe it's fat32, try formatting with mpc first if you can.. but I can double check when I get home in couple hours...this means whoever installed cd-drom drive in your mpc didnt do the pin mode because right now cd-rom is acting as a master drive, by pushing in the pin it will become slave and allow hard disk to become master

Pin 47 is the optical drive's IDE cable select pin and if holding the drive in one's hand top-side up facing the back of the drive, pin 47 is the second pin on the left side of the top row of pins in the JAE50 connector. Simply tape pin 47 and that pin only. Be carefull NOT to accidentally cover the adjacent pins 45 and 49. This will prevent the optical drive from seeing the laptop's wonky IDE cable, and it works because if the optical drive's cable select pin is not grounded then the optical drive becomes an IDE slave

http://www.mpc-forums.com/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=69586

sonofhypnos wrote:No, it was only the memory card. But I get what you're telling me so I got on it and your advice paid off! I now can see the hard disc. Maybe there are format issues with it cos if I try and load a sample to the HDD I get "DISC IS FULL" come up. I know the disc is empty (brand new) so yeah, that's where I'm at now. Guess I need to pull the HDD again and re-format it. Is it FAT for MS do you know? (I use iMac disc utility).

Anyway, thanks for your help man!

Like your signature gif btw ; )

pretty sure you HAVE to format it in the mpc. press the window button on the hard drive an dthe format option should come up.