Technical questions for the MPC2000xl and the MPC2000
By johnnyonehand Tue May 17, 2011 3:46 am
Long story short. I went and got a brand new Zip 100 off ebay. Inbox unopened and all that. It was brand new but the drive just wouldn't work (for some reason every drive I ever brought off ebay was broken). I trouble shooted with no luck. Got in touch with Iomega and they sent me a new one underwarranty since this drive was new. Got the new drive find out it doesn't like my MPC's Iomega disk only wants to read one of em.

Wouldn't be a problem but in the 2 Months it took for Iomega to get their sh-t together (said they lost the drive I mailed them) I went crazy with the MPC. I sampled anything and every thing that moved. Made some of the nastiest sounds you ever heard. Two zip disk full.

So now I'm stuck with a Zip MPC and I can't dump my sound files onto my computer. Which defeated the purpose of getting the drive for my PC. Sh*t hit the fan yesterday because one of the disk that the broken Zip drive had in it I put into my mpc. Click Click Click it gave my MPC an STD. Everything was fine but now the disk I spent 2 months making are getting Disk read errors when trying to save a sample and doing the click click death. I'm nervous as hell. I'm going to have to manually record each sample into my PC one by one unless you guys know a direct way to dump them like from the MPC directly to the Computer (doubt that can be done).

So it looks like I have 1 brand new Zip drive I can't use. A busted MPC Zip thanks to a bad disk. Can't win for anything. I'm trying to find a card reader with the hotswap.

Sorry I'm ranting but I'm so pissed. I had my 2XL since they came with the floppy A: drive. Akai used to put out an upgrade kit for the MPC to get it to Zip like the newer ones so I got it brand new. I'm pissed my drive or my disk are damaged (can't really tell with Zips). My tritons always been my wife and my MPC my mistress my family is torn apart right now.

Any tips or tricks on maybe saving my disk greatly appreciated.

I know it's my fault for buying a brand new unopened Zip drive off ebay that was still in the factory plastic. Thought I was playing it safe but look at me.
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By mr_debauch Tue May 17, 2011 4:06 am
damn zip drives... it's bad when sometimes floppies are more reliable.

yeah card reader is a good idea... who cares about the hot swap if you are running 16 gig cards.
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By nogginj Tue May 17, 2011 2:56 pm
Agree. HOt swap is nice in theory but maybe not worth waiting around for in a situation like this.

Record your tracks out, then your samples if you want. Be glad if you can at least get some RECORDINGS (that's the point, right?).

sorry to hear about that.
By JVC Tue May 17, 2011 6:12 pm
MPC-2000XL does not recognize larger than 1GB, even if your XL recognize larger than 1GB CF card, only 1GB of the CF card can be used. Still, you can store quite lot of samples and other data. XL sees CF card as a IDE drive.
I've been using non-swappable IDE CF card reader installed on my XL. The CF card can be read with PC / Mac. Never use more than 8 chars for file names (stick to DOS name format.) PC / Mac does not read XL's file with more than 8 chars (for example, "longname.wav" is OK, but you should avoid name like "longname1.wav")
I recently lost XL data by using by using file names with nore than 8 chars.

ZIP is just horible, I cannot believe it was popular storage format back then (well, it was much cheaper than other mass storage devices.)

In Japan, MO disk (Magneto Optics disk) was popular instead.
MO is very reliable media. I heard that it is often used to keep medical records.

MPC-2000XL does support MO drives, as it is mentioned on XL manual. If you can find a SCSI MO drive (it is hard to get SCSI MO drive in the US for cheap), it may not be bad idea to use, since it is hot-swappable (like floppy or zips) and MO disks are sold cheaper than ZIP disks.
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By nogginj Tue May 17, 2011 6:18 pm
MPC-2000XL does not recognize larger than 1GB, even if your XL recognize larger than 1GB CF card, only 1GB of the CF card can be used.


I don't think this is true. I think how much you can use depends on a lot of factors namely your os, your drive, and maybe even the card.

my card reader maxes out at 1gb but it is hot swap.

it's really confusing how many card options there are, and what works with what.
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By mr_debauch Tue May 17, 2011 7:23 pm
if scsi card readers weren't so damn expensive I would use those... but shit, I wont be dropping 150+ dollars on that for a classic 2000 which cant even support folders. On the xl though, that IDE port is the prime feature in my opinion.
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By mr_debauch Tue May 17, 2011 7:55 pm
Fung45 wrote:Folders are pointless.


well not on small media.. but I like them on multi gig media
By JVC Tue May 17, 2011 8:06 pm
mr_debauch wrote:
Fung45 wrote:Folders are pointless.

well not on small media.. but I like them on multi gig media

1GB disk space without folders is pointless.
By JVC Tue May 17, 2011 8:07 pm
nogginj wrote:
MPC-2000XL does not recognize larger than 1GB, even if your XL recognize larger than 1GB CF card, only 1GB of the CF card can be used.


I don't think this is true. I think how much you can use depends on a lot of factors namely your os, your drive, and maybe even the card.

my card reader maxes out at 1gb but it is hot swap.

it's really confusing how many card options there are, and what works with what.

As far as I can tell, regardless of hot-swap or not, 1GB is the maximum mass storage space XL can handle.
Max storage space on XL might be larger for SCSI devices, but for IDE/ATAPI device, 1GB is the maximum.
My CF reader on XL is not hot-swappable, Maximum partition XL can make is 1GB. I use 2GB sandisk Compact Flash card, but only 1GB is available on XL.
From my experience, only the XL with last OS release can mount IDE CF card. I tried with earlier released XL OS with CF reader, and it did not recognize any CF cards at all.
1GB (equals 10 zip disk worth of storage) is quite a lot of space for a device with 32MB max. of RAM.

If you use MPC-2000 Classic, SCSI MO drive is a good option. MPC-2000 Classic supports MO drive. IDE CF reader can also be used with s SCSI to IDE adapter, but I see that SCSI to IDE adapter has become a hot-item on ebay.
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By nogginj Tue May 17, 2011 8:17 pm
I use CF cards over IDE with OS 1.14c (hot swap).

The latest SCSI card readers I've seen use os 1.14.
They can go up to 16gb.
I think you're right though, IDE has a different limitation.

I agree, 1gb is plenty, but like I said, actual capability of these things varies quite a lot depending on set up.

And I gotta disagree I love my folders because 8 chars is just a little restrictive...and a date alone is 8 chars; I name a lot of my stuff with dates. I'm sure I could get used to it without folders, but they are really nice to have.

edit: actually i think the 1gb limit is a os 1.2 limitation...
By scsicardreaders.com Tue May 17, 2011 8:46 pm
JVC, I'm afraid you have been misinformed.

Just to make it clear, folks, the SCSI card reader drives I sell can use CF cards up to 16GB in capacity and this works totally well. No worries, no problems - it just works.
There are lots of folks all over the world using my drives and 16GB CF cards with their MPC200XLs every day.

I'm actually using a 32GB CF card with my MPC2000 Classic and it seems to work great but I am still testing this before I start selling them for the MPCs.

If you are interested, you can read more about them here:

http://scsicardreaders.com/cfcard.asp

PS: the 1GB limit is strictly for the ATAPI/IDE card readers and os 1.2.
By dave357 Wed May 18, 2011 1:23 am
i got a iomega zip 100 plus if anyone wants it shoot me an offer pm style .not sure if it works have no cord to test it but i got a scsi cord for it :/
ill ship it for 10.00 bucks
By johnnyonehand Wed May 18, 2011 5:13 am
I've been looking at this....

Is this a legit hot swap drive?

http://cgi.ebay.com/MC-2000XL-SD-CF-Multi-Card-Media-Reader-MPC2000XL-/250793824850?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item3a647a1252

or this one they have?

http://cgi.ebay.com/CF-2000XL-Compact-Flash-Memory-Card-Reader-MPC2000XL-/250767372334?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item3a62e6702e

After getting the busted Zip I originally ended up with I'm now super skeptical about buying anything computer related off ebay.

I did a little research on here and other sites about what to get for the 2KXL so seeing as how they have "hotswaps" in stock my eyebrows are raised a bit. I don't want to rant but I'm pretty dissapointed in Akai for not offering an update kit for the XL like they did with the Zip update. They know the XL market is huge. How can you just ignore them. They seriously should of added a built in hard drive with an option for a computer linkup for dumping years ago I mean this is the year 2000 what now? 11? Now I have to get a reader for the MPC and my computer so I can edit and polish my samples. The MPC is the greatest but it's media drive is a fatal weak spot.