MPC 2000 doesn't find hard disk

I have zip disks, i have floppy disks and i have a 16gb scsi external hard disk. The zip drive doesn't really work good, a floppy disk just got too less memory and my mpc2000 doesn't find the 16gb hard disk.. Because of this i can't make the beats i want to make.

Do you people have any tips on how to get the 16gb hard disk working on my mpc2000? I tried the 16gb hard disk on my friends mpc2000xl and it is working perfectly there. On my mpc2000 I tried different scsi id's like 0,1,2,3,4,5,6 and i put on the hard disk before i start up the mpc2000. I keep getting the wait...... when i try to find the hard disk.

Any tips? Or should i buy a mpc2000xl...

Well first off your doing it backwards, you want to turn the MPC on first then turn on the external drive.... if that dosnt work have you tried waiting a bit and seeing what happens? But it could also be the fact thats it 16gigs, well above the suggested working size for external HDs. The more you go above about 6gb the less across the board compatibility there is with external HDs. Also it sounds like you've never confirmed that your scsi is working properly, if the zip drive dosnt work and this dosnt work, how can you confirm its the drive and not the machine?

Another thought to leave you with is the fact that even if you get it working properly your gonna have to scroll through 16gb of files one by one with the data wheel, because the mpc2000 dosnt support folders. thats always what has steered me away from mass storage options for my 2000. it could contain thousands and thousands of files, easily 10-20,000 once you start filling it.

Thanks for your comment.

Sorry, my scsi is working properly because I can save and load sounds with a zipdrive. When I turn on the MPC first and then turn on the external drive it still doesn't work. I have tried waiting a bit and the MPC2000 just freezes, even if I wait 15 minutes.

I didn't think about the scrolling yet.. When I looked in the mpc2000xl of my friend, the hard disk automatically had sections like A B C D E F G (all with like 130mb storage), my mpc2000 won't have this? When I load akai formatted CD's on my MPC2000 I also see those A B C D E sections.

it might be too big for the classic, In terms of my own experience XL's seem to respond better to hard drives/mass storage above or at 6gb which sounds like could be the issue if it works on your friends xl but not your classic. As far as the A,B,C,D etc.. those are partitions and you can choose to split the available hard drive space or not, however I havent used external HDs alot with my 2000. But i dont ever remembering making more than 2 partitions? someone else chime in here please...

One of the few things they added in the XL's OS was support for mass storage so compatibility could definitely be the issue.

just to give you an idea of files and space, i have about 60,000 16bit 44.1khz Mono Drum/One shot samples that takes up about 5gb of space...

m56p87 wrote:Well first off your doing it backwards, you want to turn the MPC on first then turn on the external drive.....

Sorry to contradict you but it's peripherals on first and MPC on last. Please don't misinform people , it confuses those searching the site for answers.

For what it's worth, Mpc2000s are traditionally used with hard drives up to 9.1Gb.
They may or may not work with bigger drives but it's almost certain that they will not be able to use any more than 9GBs

yeah, you might need a smaller drive...

also, make sure the drive has a terminator too...

and put it on scsi 1 ... not 6.

*Pilchard* wrote:Sorry to contradict you but it's peripherals on first and MPC on last. Please don't misinform people , it confuses those searching the site for answers.

Really? I definitely might have gotten misinformation.. but I swear i remember reading about doing it MPC first/then scsi peripherals in terms of the older 60/3000 machines so you wont blow the scsi fuse.. i just use that as a guideline..

Lampdog wrote:mpc2kxl, scsi needs to on first. I have scsi cdrom and scsi 9gb hdd for my 2kxl. I've used a friends 2k and his scsi devices as well. Same for both, scsi on first.

yeah i have a scsi cd-rom and have scsi zip drive.. ive never had a problem. I must be on autopilot then when i use them. I must admit its been while since ive used any scsi drives though, probably why i got it backwards. whoops

Lampdog wrote: all good man. I need to erase my scsi hdd and sell it off to a hardware lover somewhere, it's of no use to me anymore.

yeah i have a bag of scsi crap i need to do away with as well.

I have to admit I have never had any problems turning the drives on either before or after the mpc but as with most old computer based machines, having the drive (or other item ) on already when you boot , allows the computer to see the drive as it's starting up. Otherwise you risk the computer remaining blind to the connected equipment.
I don't think the mpc2000 is usually that picky though.