MPC 2000 RaizinMonster CF reader Mod.

Thanks to these guys for giving me the idea destruktiv, distortedtekno and JVC. Great reads below...

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=175596

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=67154

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=130248&start=0

Firstly, and I should have known better being that I've built several music PC's for myself , remember that PC boards are vulnerable to static. I was really thirsty and when I disassembled my perfectly working mpc 2000 in order to do this mod. I put the motherboard in the back seat and took it to work so I could solder the 25 pins on my downtime. Somehow I managed to damage the working motherboard. After I soldered the 25 wires to the scsi pins I tried to boot my mpc up and the power supply would shut itself off. I thought the whole anti -static thing was overhyped. MPC DEAD!

I wasn't sure if it was the motherboard or power supply after testing with a multimeter but I took a chance and purchase a new motherboard from Mpcstuff.com. Sadly it was $150 added to this mod
Anyway my mpc is working again with the new motherboard and card reader installed!

I decided to go with a RaizinMonster CF card reader. The Raizinmonster converts an IDE card drive to scsi(50pin).
The card shipped from Japan and got to me in 3 days!


The only differences between distortedtekno and my mod is that I used a male single DB25 Terminal and the CF Reader. I can see how this would be daunting for a person with zero soldering experience but it's not nearly as hard as it looks. It took more balls than soldering skills IMO.



Double sided tape to mount it inside the mpc case. I did use twist ties for the final install.


I didn't have any problems fitting everything inside. Here is where I connected the 25pin to 50 pin adapter to the DB25 terminal.


The ribbon cable connects to the 50- pin connector on the raizinMonster CF/scsi card .


The raizinmonster comes with a dual 5v floppy power connector. I had to be able to power the floppy drive and the Card reader at the same time so that I could copy the mpc 2000 O.S to the CF card. I ended up cutting the mpc's floppy power cable and connecting it to a "Y" cable to feed power to both floppy and CF reader.
Again, not difficult just make sure you connect the hot and ground wires correctly.



It powers on!




Since the floppy is now disconnected it cycles through the connected scsi drive until it finds an active scsi id which I set #5. Putting a jumper on pin 1 and 4 = ID5 on the RaizinMonster. I also put a jumper on "T". I'm not sure if that enables or disables the active termination but it works.


When I first booted the mpc I got the "SCSI NOT READY" dialog. At first I thought it was the cards that I was using but it turns out that I hadn't properly seated the 25 to 50 pin adapter with the ribbon cable. You really have to push it in firmly. The CF card is now recognized!



The MPC now boots from the CF card containing the OS.





I had these laying around and they work with the 2000 and raizinmonster.


Happy Modding!

Nice work. Glad you got right back to finishing this mod. The Raizinmonster looks good inside the 2k. Plus it brings up the value. It's good to see another modded 2k done right. What size partitions did you set on your CF cards?

I actually didn't know that I could set the partition size to whatever I wanted. The 2gb card was automatically sized to 3 partitions at 666mb each. I'll keep that in mind for the next card. Thanks for the help.

Good shit mate!

Bain wrote:I actually didn't know that I could set the partition size to whatever I wanted. The 2gb card was automatically sized to 3 partitions at 666mb each. I'll keep that in mind for the next card. Thanks for the help.

It makes things a lot easier using partitions since the mpc2000 doesn't read folders. You can make up to 26 partitions depending on the size of the card. 1gb and smaller cards might be the best bet for the 2k so that you can get as many partitions of 32mb as possible. I use 32mb partitions for all my disks since that's the maximum amount of RAM in the motherboard. So I'm always guaranteed to fit what i save on any empty partition.
The only drawback with partitions is that a pc or mac wont be able to read beyond the first partition. So file transfers are best left to a separate cf card that contains no partitions. I always keep a "transfer disk" handy for that purpose.

Hmmm, so are you saying that I could've chosen "not" to format the card at all? I'm not an mpc guy and I just figured that the card would need to be formatted before saving.

Bain wrote:Hmmm, so are you saying that I could've chosen "not" to format the card at all? I'm not an mpc guy and I just figured that the card would need to be formatted before saving.

The cards do need to be formatted. In order to make partitions in the card, you need to set the partitions in the Parts field on the right side of the screen. Change "Parts: A-A" to as many partitions needed so that "Partition size=32M" is displayed above. Then hit F6.

Keep an extra FAT formatted card in case you ever want to transfer beats to your workstation. Then you can just load your beat off any of the partitions and hot swap to the other FAT card and save it.

I feel this method is safer because too many people have complained of f*cking up their partitions when trying to read on their workstations.

distortedtekno wrote:

Bain wrote:Hmmm, so are you saying that I could've chosen "not" to format the card at all? I'm not an mpc guy and I just figured that the card would need to be formatted before saving.

The cards do need to be formatted. In order to make partitions in the card, you need to set the partitions in the Parts field on the right side of the screen. Change "Parts: A-A" to as many partitions needed so that "Partition size=32M" is displayed above. Then hit F6.

Gotcha thanks.

richie wrote:Keep an extra FAT formatted card in case you ever want to transfer beats to your workstation. Then you can just load your beat off any of the partitions and hot swap to the other FAT card and save it.

I feel this method is safer because too many people have complained of f*cking up their partitions when trying to read on their workstations.

Ok. Does putting the card in your pc mess up your partition?

Bain wrote:

richie wrote:Keep an extra FAT formatted card in case you ever want to transfer beats to your workstation. Then you can just load your beat off any of the partitions and hot swap to the other FAT card and save it.

I feel this method is safer because too many people have complained of f*cking up their partitions when trying to read on their workstations.

Ok. Does putting the card in your pc mess up your partition?

I had already suggested using an extra card ("transfer disk"). The PC won't damage your partitions unless you decide to reformat the disk in the PC. The important thing to remember here is that the PC can only read the first partition of a disk. So don't create any partitions for your "transfer disk" CF card and you'll be able to access everything on that card when loaded in your PC.