Formatting Hard Drive is it working?

I recently bought a 4000 and I'm trying to format the Hard drive. When I go to Utility and select full format and hit Do it (F6) I'm brought to the confirmation screen where Do It (f5) is. I press f5 and dont' get any reaction. Is it actually doing anything? Anime girl doesn't tap her foot or anything. I'm able to cancel at any time. It's as if the button doesn't work though I know it does.

Edit: Nevermind i'm slow you gotta actually select the drive!

Hah! I had this exact same problem tonight,
am really glad I read your post!

I *finally* (after all these years) got around to putting a 128GB SSD drive into my MPC4000 (god, I'd forgotten how irritating it is unscrewing all those screws, and trying to work inside with the lid propped open with my forehead... and not wrecking the ribbon cable for the display... and trying to get the IDE cable plugged into both the CD drive and the SSD... etc etc)

But anyways, the physical installation worked OK, but I too thought the formatting routine wasn't working - when I pressed "DO IT" on the warning screen, nothing happened!
But you have to move the cursor to select the "Unknown Volume" first... a shining example of how CRAP the MPC4000 OS is! It should grey out the format button until you select something.

Once I selected the right thing, it did format very quickly though (in about 3 minutes) - I seem to recall a "full format" taking several hours before on a spinning platter drive!

I use a drum stick or kitchen spoon to prop the top up, while working

rogue scrunt wrote:I use a drum stick or kitchen spoon to prop the top up, while working

...or one of the sides work. They're off and lying around anyway.

"..when I pressed "DO IT" on the warning screen, nothing happened!
But you have to move the cursor to select the "Unknown Volume" first... a shining example of how **** the MPC4000 OS is!.."

I signed up just to say

You, Sir, are the farkin best. My jimmies were full on rustled and I searched for an answer and saw nothing for hours.

I've installed an Intel 320 120GB into my MPC 4000.

Format is in progress, and I had the same issue initially. But, it is actually (supposedly) formatting now (FULL FORMAT), and the woman in the LCD is tapping her foot and telling me to please wait.

However, this has been going on for like 5 hours now or something. I am being patient, but is it possible that something is hung? I set the jumpers on the IDE<->SATA interface to master 0.

Anyone know if this should really take 3 minutes, or have any other advice? Much appreciated.

hi4k wrote:I've installed an Intel 320 120GB into my MPC 4000.

Format is in progress, and I had the same issue initially. But, it is actually (supposedly) formatting now (FULL FORMAT), and the woman in the LCD is tapping her foot and telling me to please wait.

However, this has been going on for like 5 hours now or something. I am being patient, but is it possible that something is hung? I set the jumpers on the IDE<->SATA interface to master 0.

Anyone know if this should really take 3 minutes, or have any other advice? Much appreciated.

Nevermind, I just shut down the MPC due to impatience and formatted using my computer. The MP does recognize the drive, so hopefully all is well.

Thanks.

hi4k wrote:

hi4k wrote:I've installed an Intel 320 120GB into my MPC 4000.

Format is in progress, and I had the same issue initially. But, it is actually (supposedly) formatting now (FULL FORMAT), and the woman in the LCD is tapping her foot and telling me to please wait.

However, this has been going on for like 5 hours now or something. I am being patient, but is it possible that something is hung? I set the jumpers on the IDE<->SATA interface to master 0.

Anyone know if this should really take 3 minutes, or have any other advice? Much appreciated.

Nevermind, I just shut down the MPC due to impatience and formatted using my computer. The MP does recognize the drive, so hopefully all is well.

Thanks.

Well, I dropped some stuff from the stock drive (using USB enclosure and computer) onto the new FAT32 SSD. Loads okay in the MPC4000 but seems to hang if I click 'do it' on various items. Shame.

Anyone else have issues if they formatted their SSD in the computer, first? Thanks.

Are you using the Kingwin IDE to Sata converter? That seems to improve the 'hanging' I experienced. Also I used a crucial SSD which formatted relatively quickly in the MPC.

P.S. I use a small Rain Stick to hold up the lid of the MPC. Relatively soothing for several seconds until reality sets back in.

atestarr wrote:Are you using the Kingwin IDE to Sata converter? That seems to improve the 'hanging' I experienced. Also I used a crucial SSD which formatted relatively quickly in the MPC.

P.S. I use a small Rain Stick to hold up the lid of the MPC. Relatively soothing for several seconds until reality sets back in.

No, I picked the cheapest one I could find on eBay ($3.69 including shipping from Shenzen). Whoops. They look almost identical but perhaps that is the issue as you pointed out.

Will try to report back once I get the Kingwin.

hi4k wrote:

atestarr wrote:Are you using the Kingwin IDE to Sata converter? That seems to improve the 'hanging' I experienced. Also I used a crucial SSD which formatted relatively quickly in the MPC.

P.S. I use a small Rain Stick to hold up the lid of the MPC. Relatively soothing for several seconds until reality sets back in.

No, I picked the cheapest one I could find on eBay ($3.69 including shipping from Shenzen). Whoops. They look almost identical but perhaps that is the issue as you pointed out.

Will try to report back once I get the Kingwin.

Here's a crazy idea I am floating around.

First off, this is contingent upon the assumption that using the internal IDE connection for my SSD drive will be noticeably faster than using it via USB connection on the back.

So: Does anyone happen to know if using an SSD via USB to the back of the 4000 is much different in speed than using the internal IDE connection?

Assuming that it is much slower, my radical idea is to re-appropriate one of the expansion slots in order to build a custom cold-swappable (meant to be done by powering down the 4000) SSD slot. This would have the huge advantage of being able to quickly connect the SSD drive to a computer for transferring data, would be internal (much more portable), and might or might not have a speed advantage (see previous question).

Thoughts?

usb connection is very slow.
ide is much faster

hi4k wrote:So: Does anyone happen to know if using an SSD via USB to the back of the 4000 is much different in speed than using the internal IDE connection?

Assuming that it is much slower, my radical idea is to re-appropriate one of the expansion slots in order to build a custom cold-swappable (meant to be done by powering down the 4000) SSD slot. This would have the huge advantage of being able to quickly connect the SSD drive to a computer for transferring data, would be internal (much more portable), and might or might not have a speed advantage (see previous question).

Thoughts?

You would be using it from the front USB port - the rear port is a computer slave port only.

I like your idea, even if the availability of the front USB port may mean it's not a priority for many users.

In a way though, they're both slow compared to load times in an SSD equipped laptop, so it's the difference of glacial vs painfully slow. If the external SSD fits your workflow it might be better overall. Still, you could have external hard drives to import/export files via aksys and have an internal SSD in the MPC. (Or not) I got along just fine with an MPC 2KXL with a flash card reader. That was sloooooow.

atestarr wrote:In a way though, they're both slow compared to load times in an SSD equipped laptop, so it's the difference of glacial vs painfully slow. If the external SSD fits your workflow it might be better overall. Still, you could have external hard drives to import/export files via aksys and have an internal SSD in the MPC. (Or not) I got along just fine with an MPC 2KXL with a flash card reader. That was sloooooow.

And, here's where things get even more painful. I'm using W7 which doesn't work well with AKSYS. However, I could set up an older OS to accommodate AKSYS if it were to fit well with my workflow. The main things are not jumping through hoops to get sounds in and out of the MPC, and preferably have it done quickly (second priority).

Can someone comments on the external SCSI interface, in terms of speed, versus the internal IDE connection? As an alternate to the 'custom internal cold-swappble SSD/SATA interface via empty expansion slot reappropriation and custom metalwork', I would just get a SCSI to SATA adaptor (assuming this would work), stick the SSD in an enclosure and be done with it. Having the drive be internal is just a bonus as my MPC is stationary.

Secondly, can someone comment on the speed of moving files around with AKSYS? Is it painful like the front USB connector might be?