XL Card Reader Drama

Technical questions for the MPC2000xl and the MPC2000
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XL Card Reader Drama

By mistamouse Thu Aug 18, 2011 10:19 pm
Sup heads?

I been going crazy trying to get a card reader to work on my XL. My floppy works fine, but when I connect a CF card reader via IDE to the boards ATAPI/IDE slot, it starts up but wont recognize the drive is connected. The options available in the LOAD screen are only FLOPPY, SCSI 1-7, and F-ROM. I have a Duracell CF card, and the almighty Sandisk 2 GB card...nothing works in this scenario.

So then I got a Floppy drive with multi card reader (Compact Flash included), and connected it to the Floppy slot on the board, and again, won't read my CF card (both Duracell and Sandisk), but it will read the floppy.

I have tried with the 1.14 OS and the 1.2 OS, no luck in any way.

Can anyone shed light on this? Im going bonkers, I can't deal with a floppy drive anymore.

Respect to those who can help me out. Peace.
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Re: XL Card Reader Drama

By mr_debauch Thu Aug 18, 2011 10:23 pm
wait, you have the floppy and IDE cf reader connected at the same time? what did you do to connect both devices to the mini molex power connector at the same time?

Re: XL Card Reader Drama

By MPCHunter Thu Aug 18, 2011 11:51 pm
How are you powering the Compact Flash reader?

Is the jumper on the card reader set to Master?

Is the compact flash card inserted into the reader before the MPC powers on?

Re: XL Card Reader Drama

By JVC Fri Aug 19, 2011 1:18 am
I think this is what you bought:

Ultra ULT40366 3.5" Floppy Drive with Multi Card Reader

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications ... No=4266375

This will not work as CF reader. It is actually two independent devices (USB card reader and floppy drive) in one.

Yes, you can use it as floppy drive, but its card reader cannot be connected to 2000XL, because it is USB device.
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Re: XL Card Reader Drama

By mistamouse Fri Aug 19, 2011 4:55 am
wait, you have the floppy and IDE cf reader connected at the same time? what did you do to connect both devices to the mini molex power connector at the same time?


No I tried both scenarios, the floppy drive first, then the card reader...not both at the same time. Is that possible though?

would help to have a link to the card reader you are using.


I have a Startech CF reader see it here...http://ca.startech.com/HDD/Card-Readers/Internal/Compact-Flash-Card-to-IDE-Adapter-with-35-Bay-Enclosure~35BAYCF2IDE


How are you powering the Compact Flash reader?
Is the jumper on the card reader set to Master?
Is the compact flash card inserted into the reader before the MPC powers on?


The reader is powered by the floppy power cable on the board..I never thought of this but maybe its not even getting power?
The jumper is set to master.
The card is inserted before it turn on, and I have tried it without being in as well.

I think this is what you bought:

Ultra ULT40366 3.5" Floppy Drive with Multi Card Reader

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications ... No=4266375

This will not work as CF reader. It is actually two independent devices (USB card reader and floppy drive) in one.

Yes, you can use it as floppy drive, but its card reader cannot be connected to 2000XL, because it is USB device.


Yes JVC, I got that today as I had exhausted my troubleshooting with my dedicated CF reader. I see what your saying that it wont work as both though.

I appreciate the replies y'all.
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Re: XL Card Reader Drama

By mr_debauch Fri Aug 19, 2011 5:26 am
well when you power her on, do any lights flash momentarily on the cf reader? also, yes you must boot the mpc with the card inserted.
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Re: XL Card Reader Drama

By Coz Fri Aug 19, 2011 9:05 am
I bought the full CF kit from MPC Stuff a few years back and that was a nightmare to get it working properly. Just when I was about to give up it magically jumped into life. :?
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Re: XL Card Reader Drama

By locotesmjr Fri Aug 19, 2011 10:28 am
Make sure you are connecting the power cable properly it is very easy to messed up things with those floppy power connector, you can easily plug the connector in the wrong way... I saw some pics on the forum showing the right way, check for those pics...
Also make sure you have a good known working CF card, I know those CF card readers are very picky.. I believe I read that they work with the 1GB Sandisk CF cards... but not with the Kingstons...
Also I would recommend you to check if you are using the 40 pin 40 wires ribbon cable, their exist also a 40 pin but 80 wires version and I'm not sure if those work, you should check if yours are 40/40 you can easily recognize those because the wires in the ribbon cable looks more thick than the 40/80...

Image

Re: XL Card Reader Drama

By JVC Fri Aug 19, 2011 2:02 pm
The floppy & multi memory card reader combo won't work, even in theory, since XL access to IDE port then floppy drive is present, and vise versa.
Especially, Ultra ULT40366 3.5" Floppy Drive with Multi Card Reader is USB device (for card reader), so these is zero chance of connecting it to XL (although I think the floppy drive would work with XL.)

I've been using this Addonics CF reader with my 2000XL:

http://www.addonics.com/products/flash_ ... didecf.asp

There are other similar looking IDE CF reader from Addonics, but this non-hot-swappable IDE port CF reader is the one that works on 2000XL. With this CF reader, compact flash card act just like a hard drive, which means the card must be connected all time, unless XL is turned off.

Addonics also sells a hot swappable IDE CF reader (which is a true ATAPI device) which does NOT work with XL (I've already made a mistake testing it, so I can tell you it is NOT compatible!)

The only part you have to mod is that there is no screw holes on the bottom of the metal case. I drilled the holes, but I heard some people just used hot glue gun instead.

Check this thread for how to install the Addonics CF reader:

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=140216&start=15
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Re: XL Card Reader Drama

By mistamouse Mon Aug 22, 2011 4:14 pm
JVC...I bought the Addonics CF reader, it just arrived. Im going to try it out tonight, but it looks exactly like the one I bought form Startech last month.

One thing Im wondering is which power supply to use. It seems like the CF reader needs to be connected to a power supply that you would find from a regular computer Power Supply, but there is no such option with the XL.

Any advice on the power supply required?
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Re: XL Card Reader Drama

By locotesmjr Mon Aug 22, 2011 10:52 pm
mistamouse wrote:JVC...I bought the Addonics CF reader, it just arrived. Im going to try it out tonight, but it looks exactly like the one I bought form Startech last month.

One thing Im wondering is which power supply to use. It seems like the CF reader needs to be connected to a power supply that you would find from a regular computer Power Supply, but there is no such option with the XL.

Any advice on the power supply required?



Hey mistamouse just to update you with this I just installed the Startech CF card reader in my XL and it works great! Yes, it does looks exactly the same as the Addonics and I followed all the steps previously mentioned.

First thing I did was update my OS to 1.2 using the floppy disk, then I make sure to have the correct 40 pin 40 wires ribbon cable, I used the same power cord that my floppy drive were using so no mod in there, I make sure to connect everything properly, I closed the MPC, inserted the CF Card in the slot and turn the MPC on, then SHIFT + 3, go to FORMAT and format the CF card, everything works in the first attempt! as I said before you need to make sure you have a correct CF card and 40 pin 40 wires ribbon cable, everything there comes alone... I have the SanDisk 1GB CF card, I read that those CF card readers are very picky with the cards, If you are doing all the connections properly and your MPC still not recognizing your CF drive then most probably you are not using the correct CF card, I were lucky enough that I had this SanDisk 1GB from my 1K and I never use it because I have a HDD installed there :D

So to all the users out there Startech CF card readers works perfect with the MPC 2000 XL!

Peace!


PS: this is exactly the one that I'm using with my Startech CF card reader

Image

Also I tried the Akai 128MB CF card that came with my MPC2500 and works!
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Re: XL Card Reader Drama

By mr_debauch Mon Aug 22, 2011 11:07 pm
first of all, the 40 pin 80 wire cable should work fine.. the other 40 wires are just grounds... the only difference between the two is that the 80 wire ones allow you to use hard drives above 136 gigs.. well you can still use hard drives that are bigger then 136 gigs on the 40 pin 40 wire cables but the remaining space wont be seen.

As for the computer power connector (ie: molex) the one in the 2000xl is a mini molex connector. Look on ebay or what have you for a molex to mini molex adapter... they probably cost like 99 cents.
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Re: XL Card Reader Drama

By mistamouse Tue Aug 23, 2011 6:15 pm
Hey locotesmjr, when you go to LOAD, what does it say is the source for the CF Reader? Does it say F-ROM? Or does it say ATAPI? Mine only says FLOPPY, F-ROM, and SCSI 0-7...none of them work.

Mr_Debauch, thanks for the info, I will try that out if it still doesn't work with this new Addonics reader.
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Re: XL Card Reader Drama

By locotesmjr Tue Aug 23, 2011 6:33 pm
mr_debauch wrote:first of all, the 40 pin 80 wire cable should work fine.. the other 40 wires are just grounds... the only difference between the two is that the 80 wire ones allow you to use hard drives above 136 gigs.. well you can still use hard drives that are bigger then 136 gigs on the 40 pin 40 wire cables but the remaining space wont be seen.

As for the computer power connector (ie: molex) the one in the 2000xl is a mini molex connector. Look on ebay or what have you for a molex to mini molex adapter... they probably cost like 99 cents.



Yeah bro, I know but the 40 pin 40 wires commonly have the 40 pin holes open, the 40 pin 80 wires sometimes have 1 pin hole blocked, that's why I recommended the first one

Image
Image


mistamouse wrote:Hey locotesmjr, when you go to LOAD, what does it say is the source for the CF Reader? Does it say F-ROM? Or does it say ATAPI? Mine only says FLOPPY, F-ROM, and SCSI 0-7...none of them work.

Mr_Debauch, thanks for the info, I will try that out if it still doesn't work with this new Addonics reader.


It says ATAPI and it is showed as a Hard drive, Weird is that you still having the FLOPPY option there since I replaced the floppy drive for the CF card reader automatically the floppy option disappeared from the list!... so my only options are ATAPI, F-ROM and SCSI 0-7 also after moving around all the SCSI ports they disappear because they are not SCSI devices connected. so then I only have ATAPI and F-ROM like options...

I would suggest you to post some pics of your installation process, that way we can see what are you doing wrong... OR in the worst scenario your IDE port it is **** up
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