Help! Newly Purchased MPC 2000XL w/ Internal CF Reader Only

Hi guys. I'm new to the MPC after using the Maschine. I purchased an MPC 2000xl off of eBay and am now unable to get anything started. I loaded some sounds on to a 4 gig CF card which was not read by the MPC. I'm reading that the 2000xl only is compatible with cards that are smaller than one gig? And on top of this, do I need an SCSI drive to boot the MPC up sucessfully? I thought I was reading that in order to load the 1.2 OS that I must first load the MPC with a SCSI zip disk in order to format the CF card for initial use. Or am I simply in need of a smaller CF card? Thanks in advnace, I'm sure some of these questions are dumb.

okay slow down for a second... This can be a simple thing to figure out or to sort out but a few questions first.

1) is your mpc starting up? is it going to the main screen? or is it turning on and prompting you for something on the screen?

2) if it's booting up, what OS version does it say upon booting? os 1.14 or os 1.20? what exactly does it say?

3) what size and brand is your cf card?

4) what type of samples did you put on that cf card? are they .wav 16 bit 44?

If you have the 1.14 OS.. I can point you in the direction to getting your situation sorted out.

Hey thanks for the response. My MPC does indeed boot normally. It is version 1.11 which I know is ridiculously old. The internal reader only says CF .I/II I believe. I'm not currently home but I'm 100% sure it does not have a brand name on it. The samples are 16 bit, CF Card is 4 gig San Disk.

well first of all.. a 4 gig card I dont know if those work.. 1gb is the limit with os1.20 (and some people have a rare card reader that actually works on 1.14 and those can use large cf cards up to 16 or potentially even higher sized cards... but 99 times out of 100 you wont have one of those)

what you need to do is get a standard computer floppy drive and a disk.. or, you need to get a zip reader and a disk.. and you need to be able to connect it to the pc.

Essentially, you need to format them (choose fat) and you need to get the OS 1.20 from the akaipro website... the downloaded file will be zipped... that needs to be unpacked. the contents needs to be popped on the disk, and you need to put it into the mpc.. it wont work with the cf reader if the machine cant read cf cards yet... right?


however... I suggest first, that you try and get a 1gb sandisk card to see if it works. What exactly happens again if you boot the machine with your 4 gig card inserted and you go to the disk screen?

Thanks man, that was what I was worried about because the two devices (the SCSI ZIp drive & the Zip USB drive) will run me $300 it seems. The MPC loads like any normal MPC I believe. I used to use the 500. I go to the loading screen and scroll to F-ROM and it simply says there is not one available. Of course this would be because it is 4gigs. I definitely plan on finding a 1 gig or smaller CF card just to try.

ah so that is what I thought now that you mention f-rom... the f-rom is an expansion all on it's own (it's the 8mb f-rom expansion.. a card/chip that attached to the motherboard internally.. very rare to find)

your problem is, you have an IDE cf drive/reader... but you need os1.20 to run it.

when you have one of those connected and you are using one of the other os versions it shows f-rom in the drives list.

Here are your options supposing you have a PC:

1) get a floppy drive (this is the cheapest option) and hopefully you have a computer with floppy, or the ability to attach the floppy drive to the computer internally... and you need a floppy disk. Get the os.. put it on it.. take the drive out and put it in the mpc.

2) get a IDE zip drive.. and put it where the cf reader currently is in the mpc. Yes it will work.. it doesn't even require os1.20... you can use an older os to read from it from what I understand... you also need a disk, and you can attach it to your computer to put the os on it.

3) get a scsi zip drive, a disk, and either a usb zip drive or a PCI scsi adapter... this is a bad idea... it will cost a lot to do...


floppy drives are cheap. look for used ones on craigslist or ebay... or check the free section or computer section of craigslist for a beat up old POS computer tower from 1996 to pull the drive from. You can always post in the computer and free sections with a wanted add asking for a cheap floppy drive and some disks... they dont need to be new, they just need to be used once.


now, there is a chance that maybe the 4 gig cf card can be used after you have 1.20 installed.... however it's not guaranteed... but I will tell you right off the bat... the mpc will need to format it, and you wont get more than 1 gb of space out of it. Even if you put in a 2gb card, it will only see 1 gig.

Thank you, you have been very helpful. When you are referring to the Floppy drive in option 1, are you referring to an SCSI floppy drive or an internal MPC drive? This is probably a dumb question but is the OS 1.2 something that only has to be installed once into the MPC or does it need to be on the CF card as well if that is what I'll be using moving forward.

GhostMcGrady wrote:Thank you, you have been very helpful. When you are referring to the Floppy drive in option 1, are you referring to an SCSI floppy drive or an internal MPC drive? This is probably a dumb question but is the OS 1.2 something that only has to be installed once into the MPC or does it need to be on the CF card as well if that is what I'll be using moving forward.

ahh.. i see what you think... in the regular non XL version of the mpc2000, the OS disk needs to be inserted every time you turn the machine on... on the XL is has a flash built on the motherboard that contains the OS...

essentially, once you do option 1... you can take the floppy drive out, pop the cf reader back in and close up the mpc (after testing that everything is connected properly of course.)

no, scsi is not required at all for any of this for option 1... you need a regular old floppy drive from a pc computer. I dont think there is anything special about them... if by some odd off chance it doesn't work... (highly unlikely) then just get another one and try that... (it may be good to have a backup incase one breaks or what ever)


for future reference... there is two places on the mpc that has a scsi port. on the back you will find one, and there is a large 50 pin scsi port on the main board (there is 3 ports on the mother board.. a short floppy port, a medium ide/atapi port, and a long scsi port) it just takes a regular floppy drive, a regular floppy cable... and you use the mini molex floppy power supply cable you will find inside the mpc... it's the one connected to the cf reader most likely (there is only one power lead to connect to drives inside the mpc) ... so basically, once you are done, you will have to remove that power connector from the floppy drive so you can plug it into the cf reader again.

You have been a tremendous help. thank you very much

no problem... I hope you sort it out so you could post something up in the my music section! would be cool to hear your machine in action.

mr_debauch wrote:ah so that is what I thought now that you mention f-rom... the f-rom is an expansion all on it's own (it's the 8mb f-rom expansion.. a card/chip that attached to the motherboard internally.. very rare to find)

your problem is, you have an IDE cf drive/reader... but you need os1.20 to run it.

when you have one of those connected and you are using one of the other os versions it shows f-rom in the drives list.

Not really correct, I think that it shows f-rom in the drives list no matter what OS version you are using, and whether you have an IDE/ATAPI device connected or not.

Having f-rom in the drives list doesn't really relate to anything else, does not indicate anything else, it is always there.

mr_debauch wrote:3) get a scsi zip drive, a disk, and either a usb zip drive or a PCI scsi adapter... this is a bad idea... it will cost a lot to do...

Bad because unreliable, I don't think that second hand SCSI and USB Zip drives are very expensive.

mr_debauch wrote:now, there is a chance that maybe the 4 gig cf card can be used after you have 1.20 installed.... however it's not guaranteed... but I will tell you right off the bat... the mpc will need to format it, and you wont get more than 1 gb of space out of it. Even if you put in a 2gb card, it will only see 1 gig.

The 1GB limit seems to be a formatting limit on IDE/ATAPI devices.

If the memory card itself is compatible with the MPC, it shouldn't make any difference whether it is 1GB or 4GB.

I assume it was provided for MPC-PC transfer compatibility, when Akai released the MCD version, to lessen the support load from customers having issues with MPC-PC transfer and the previous OS created non-standard MPC partitions.

OS 1.20 will still format a memory card to the old multiple MPC partitions scheme, without being limited to a single 1GB max "PC" partition, if connected to the SCSI port rather than the IDE/ATAPI port.

The IDE/ATAPI connection under OS1.20 will still recognise and work with a multi-MPC-partition storage device, it just will not format it that way.

well on os 1.14, when you dont have a cf card reader connected, and you have either a scsi zip or a floppy connected... it doesn't say f-rom. then you take out the floppy and pop in the ide cf reader... all of a sudden it says f-rom in the list of things.. then when you update to 1.20... f-rom is replaced with the proper thing... I forget what they call it in that list. If you read around the forums... many people experienced this... seeing f-rom and the drive not working because they were on 1.14. It wasn't only me when I did the upgrade to CF years ago.

well how much is a usb zip drive? or a scsi adapter? and how much is a scsi zip drive for the mpc? more expensive than $0.00-$5.00? now, how about if you need to use ebay to buy those things? let's say 50 bucks as a ballpark price for all that on the low end?

well I dont know the limit on atapi devices... but JD used to sell atapi drives before he went out of business that could support 16 gig cards (with full access to the 16 gigs) and he said that he thought 32 gig cf cards could be supported... though he didn't fully test or something.. he wasn't 100% sure on the 32gigs but he was on 16gigs. (those ran on os 1.14) He also sold cheaper cf card readers with the 1 gig maximum that ran on only os 1.20

mr_debauch wrote:well on os 1.14, when you dont have a cf card reader connected, and you have either a scsi zip or a floppy connected... it doesn't say f-rom. then you take out the floppy and pop in the ide cf reader... all of a sudden it says f-rom in the list of things.. then when you update to 1.20... f-rom is replaced with the proper thing... I forget what they call it in that list. If you read around the forums... many people experienced this... seeing f-rom and the drive not working because they were on 1.14. It wasn't only me when I did the upgrade to CF years ago.

Maybe I am not testing it in the exact configuration to act the way you describe, but it doesn't work like that when I test it.

I just tested it, and it shows F-ROM on both 1.14 and 1.20, with floppy only, with no floppy, with SCSI Zip.

This is just not correct information, from how I am seeing it behave right in front of me, F-ROM is always an available disk choice, between SCSI-7 and Floppy in the list.

This is how it should operate, as the F-ROM choice relates to the F-ROM option, it really is nothing to do with the OS version or whether there is an IDE/ATAPI device connected or not.

The F-ROM option should work with any of these configurations, there is no reason that it should appear or disappear depending on OS version and connected IDE/ATAPI devices.

mr_debauch wrote:well how much is a usb zip drive? or a scsi adapter? and how much is a scsi zip drive for the mpc? more expensive than $0.00-$5.00? now, how about if you need to use ebay to buy those things? let's say 50 bucks as a ballpark price for all that on the low end?

Yes, something like that.

I paid $50 for a USB Zip drive, and already had a few SCSI Zip drives, but I don't think that is very expensive, when people seem to be paying $200+ for an external card reader.

mr_debauch wrote:well I dont know the limit on atapi devices... but JD used to sell atapi drives before he went out of business that could support 16 gig cards (with full access to the 16 gigs) and he said that he thought 32 gig cf cards could be supported... though he didn't fully test or something.. he wasn't 100% sure on the 32gigs but he was on 16gigs. (those ran on os 1.14) He also sold cheaper cf card readers with the 1 gig maximum that ran on only os 1.20

Yes, it should support 26 (A-Z) x 1GB (max) partitions, I would expect that you could use a maximum of 26GB out of a 32GB card.

The cheaper CF readers didn't have a 1GB maximum, the MPC 1.20 OS, that is required for the MPC to recognise the readers, limits the format possibilities to a single maximum 1GB partition, since it is on the IDE/ATAPI connector.

If you connect the same cheaper IDE/ATAPI card reader to an SCSI-IDE bridge, in the same 1.20 MPC, it should allow use of the full 16GB in the same way as JDs old drives that supported 16GB.

SimonInAustralia wrote:Yes, something like that.

I paid $50 for a USB Zip drive, and already had a few SCSI Zip drives, but I don't think that is very expensive, when people seem to be paying $200+ for an external card reader.

yeah but who would do that for a 2000xl... when you can buy an ide one on ebay for 0.99 cents plus 0.26 cents shipping? The dude in the OP said he wasn't trying to spend money on two zip drives and a disk to use once and once only to update the OS... so I suggested the FREE (potentially) or max 5 dollar floppy drive... that will do the job as well... (he asked for the cheapest way)

SimonInAustralia wrote:The F-ROM option should work with any of these configurations, there is no reason that it should appear or disappear depending on OS version and connected IDE/ATAPI devices.

ah okay fair enough if that is your experience... however, why can't you see the MO drive custom logo in the drives list then ... and it does show it when you have one connected? because the mpc thinks you have an MO drive connected, when you connect one.. that is why. Do a search on the forums, I have seen piles of threads where people install a cf drive before updating the OS... and then they see f-rom pop up and they believe that is the drive they installed but it doesn't work.... but they dont see the proper drive for the cf card.

This has nothing to do with the ability to install the actual f-rom expansion module which nobody but 2 people own.. or the required os for the f-rom.

Last but not least... yes, scsi bridges.. but we are talking about OS 1.20 and an ide/atapi card reader, installed in the atapi port where I dont believe os 1.20 can make use of partitions.. unless im wrong and you have a cf card in the atapi port that can with 1.20.

mr_debauch wrote:Do a search on the forums, I have seen piles of threads where people install a cf drive before updating the OS... and then they see f-rom pop up and they believe that is the drive they installed but it doesn't work.... but they dont see the proper drive for the cf card.

I don't really care what piles of threads say.

My theory is that they are people who are trying to get a card reader to work, they see F-ROM in the list, and think it is something to do with the card reader they are trying to make work.

The F-ROM option has been there all along, they just have not noticed it, and now when getting stressed about their new card reader not working, they incorrectly assume that the F-ROM option is something to do with it.


I already have an open MPC2000XL right next to me, as I am in the process of testing some different card readers. I just tested it, that is how it behaves, for me anyway.

You could open yours and test it, so that you actually know for sure how it behaves, or you can keep believing the piles of incorrect threads, it doesn't bother me if you want to continue spreading misinformation, just don't be surprised if I try to correct it.

I have seen this before, like trying to tell people that the MPC3000 VGA option is not sync on green, the misinformation has already been spread through so many threads that some are unable to accept that the facts might be different to what they have come to believe.

Or like trying to convince someone that the EB16 was mono in...you can lead a horse to water.

mr_debauch wrote:This has nothing to do with the ability to install the actual f-rom expansion module which nobody but 2 people own.. or the required os for the f-rom.

Yes, and that is exactly what I am trying to tell you...the F-ROM list choice is always available, for that expensive option that only 2 people own, it is nothing to do with the IDE/ATAPI device being connected or not.

You are trying to tell everyone that the F-ROM choice appears and disappears from the list, depending on OS version and IDE/ATAPI device connection.

I am not seeing this at all, the F-ROM choice is always in the list.


What I might be seeing with 1.14 is the Floppy list choice disappearing and being replaced with the ATAPI choice, but the F-ROM choice is still there.

I need to find the 40 wire IDE cable I have here somewhere, the 80 wire IDE cable seems to cause it to throw up memory dumps.

mr_debauch wrote:Last but not least... yes, scsi bridges.. but we are talking about OS 1.20 and an ide/atapi card reader, installed in the atapi port where I dont believe os 1.20 can make use of partitions.. unless im wrong and you have a cf card in the atapi port that can with 1.20.

I see many definitive statements about 1.20 and IDE/ATAPI card readers only working with a single 1GB partition.

What I am getting at is that an OS 1.20 MPC can make use of partitions, if you put an already MPC-multiple-partitioned 16GB card (for example) into an OS 1.20 IDE/ATAPI reader, it will be able to use it.

The only limitation is that it can not format it like that, in the IDE/ATAPI connected reader, it can still use it, and can format it like that in a SCSI connected reader.



I am more than happy to be proven wrong on any of this, and I will do more testing to confirm that what I think I am seeing is correct, and will happily admit it if I am wrong.

I am going on my own testing and what I am seeing, not what other people deduced from their own possibly flawed troubleshooting in "piles of threads".