SCSI Hard Drive Connection

Hello everybody!

I got mpc2000xl from shop then got ibm ultrastar 9es 9,1gb formatted via windows xp in fat format into one primary and two logical partitions. drive was tested ok. mpc does recognize the drive but pretends to have "SCSI not ready!!". The SCSI ID numbers are not the same and active termination is on on the drive. No action seems to get possible with the drive when trying to control with the mpc. Of course I got latest firmware working and everything else looks fine.

If someone help I may start recording my new equipment only lacks this machine it would be so nice...

If you have the drive only for use with your MPC, you should try formatting with the MPC instead of using the default format you have now.

I dunno if that'll work, but that's what I have to do with my zip disks when I get them, and the MPC recognizes the zip drive as a hard drive, so you might as well try it out.

Hello again,

I want to thank you a lot for trying to help. It's just that I made the problem not clear enough: I want to use the drive with the MPC exclusively. Since I bought it used I tested and formatted it fat with Windows XP just as the akai germany support person told me on the phone.

But the MPC 2000XL pretends to still have "SCSI not ready!!". I use the expensive 50 Pin cable that was used with my AKAI DPS 12 until I installed an internal drive and won't need it with the DPS anymore. It has a big connection on one and a small connection on the other side (as you can see I'm not a SCSI professional) that have both 50 Pins. The fuzz in this forum about 25 to 50 Pin cables I cannot understand it doesn't gets explained (I did not see it).

Of course I tried to format the disk with the MPC but as the MPC tries to access the disk "SCSI not ready!!" is all it is able to provide. It says on the display "drive: ddrs-39130" "vendor: ibm" and so but no partition data is displayed and the size is not getting displayed under the drive icon.

Trying to format or do anything with it results in "SCSI not ready!!" error report. But the connection seems to have established the MPC was factory sealed and only updated in firmware by myself since then. Without the disk working with it seems to not making sense so I sit waiting for someone like you (you actually read this..) to help me out this dilemma. I make music for 25 years and now have a lot of fine new equipment. When I only could get this MPC to work the awaited new recordings would maybe really happen.

I hope you can see that help is needed. If you could help me out I do for you what I may can.

Michael

P.S. Maybe its just a configuration problem... Or the SCSI drive is not jumpered in the right way. I set the "enable scsi terminator" and the connector for scsi id one that was everything. As I said its also terminated at the outside with active terminator that has a green led telling me the termination is active ok...

If it is an ultra-wide drive (16-bit data path) the MPC will not be able to communicate with it unless you force the drive to 8-bit (narrow). This is usually done by jumper, however I am not familiar with this IBM model.

Hello

thank you again for kind support. However one talking to akai germany support made clear that this drive is not supported by the 2000XL at all. I forgot to enable autospin via jumpering then the format command was enabled but did not work

I have yet to find compatibility list that is somehow up to date. Getting a hard drive is easy but when it comes to telling me what specifications the drive should have every professional shop and akai support definetely fail until today

They want to tell me buy this or that but the prices are very high and I do not see the point I want to be independant from money interests from music shops

Ebay sells SCSI drives at realistic prices even Berlin local second hand papers have interesting drives to offer. If I only knew what I should get all that is told is get 2 Megabyte cache get an IBM thats the end of information even the professionals seem to be able to provide

It seems to be a game of trial and error but then I cannot have them tell me this ... is approved I tried it this works with the MPC. they want to keep this information cause they fear I then buy the drive somewhere else

Maybe they is right if just someone could tell ..

This problem keeps me away from my recordings I waited long times for..

You might be the hero of the situation if you let me know what to do please tell with total absence of hesitation it comes to the right place

i just got a hd off of ebay its made by seagate works great so far i read your post and i didn't see anything about u formatting the hd for the mpc if maybe i missed that but ibm hd's are suppossed to be compatible