Yeah I be keen on this too, so many missing images in this thread

The akai connector looks very similar to the one Roland used on the SR-JV expansion boards. I get why Akai used it in the first place and it's a fair robust connect and can take a lot of reinsertions with out the risk of pin damage.
Did anyone try the MDR connector linked to earlier? I doesn't really look like the same connector.
The easiest way would probably be to replace the whole board and with a new one with an FCC connector and connect directly to the FFC cable from the mainboard.
Pretty much what was mentioned in this post earlier in the thread.
For a moment I was also envisaging an FPC to IDC 50 pins connector (FPC breakout board), completely bypassing the MDR connector,
https://www.mpc-forums.com/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=153494#p1825560and in this
made an adapter-pcb (from FFC/FPC to 44-Pin PATA/ whatever you like RM2.54mm) to just replace the internal adapter (from FFC/FPC to MDR) if someone is interested: https://github.com/clubbymaty/MPC_1K_HDD_Adapter
but you have to get the pcb and parts by yourself ... I could only provide a populated pcb to people in the EU ... as soon as I tested it!
But that github page is not there anymore.