Technical questions for the MPC2000xl and the MPC2000
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By its bena Tue Nov 04, 2003 3:28 pm
Abridged storyline…

I post a few questions repeatedly in the MPC forums…asking if anyone has an external zip disk, what type to get for the 200xl, etc etc. nothing but unclear responses…as everyone seems to have INTERNAL zip drives…however Im not trying to lose my floppy disk so that’s out of the question.

Nevertheless…I get the info on my own. I get a zip drive off ebay. Im happy. I have dozens of floppy disks with beats on em that take like 5 minutes to load every time an emcee wants to hear my new sh*t..and it’s a pain. Everyone is telling me the zip disk is going to make my life easier.

Of course…more technical difficulties ..I receive my iomega zip drive….and the chord doesn’t match. I call up AKAI…nice gentlemen tells me that I need a 50 – 25 pin chord. I go on ebay…order one up. more shipping and handling and waiting-for-auction-to-end delay…all the while I have about 100 floppy disks full of tunes and work-in-progresses (I’m addicted to the XL..love it.except when the **** crashes on me..lotta bugs).

So I get the new chord…hook it up…I think I’m about to “high tech” with it…efficient, faster, whatever. I load up a tune…turn the dial to choose SCSI device…the machine just FREEZES at the “waiting” screen (its waiting to recognize an external SCSI). At this point..Im pissed…and I figure maybe I got sent a bad chord (cause scuzzi’s burn easily)…but at this point…I’ll stick with my slow ass floppy disks until someone can maybe give me some insight as to why its so Mofo’in hard to simply hook up an external SCSI to this classic, but archaic machine. damn.

Sht like this makes me think I shoulda copped the 1000. SCSI is dead…I need to be on some new sh*t.

ed
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By MPC-Tutor Tue Nov 04, 2003 3:31 pm
The endless 'waiting...' thing is either it's a faulty drive, a faulty cable or a blown SCSI fuse in your MPC - more info about this in the zip faq on the site.
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By its bena Tue Nov 04, 2003 5:35 pm
Thank you for the reply. Naturally..next question is which one is it? I did buy the MPC used...so how will I be able to discern if its a faulty cable, or if its the MPC. I dont watn to just keep buying new cables and playing trial and error. I gues thats teh only way. depressing..dissapointing..illhave to stick to floppies.

ed
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By Swissmaster Cheese Tue Nov 04, 2003 5:54 pm
...or get an internal one.....it seems like you want to get a zip so you dont want to have to deal with the floppy, yet you insist that the floppy stays when the most obvious answer is to get rid of the thing....not trying to be facetious or anything but just cop yourself two atapi sip drives(an internal one for your MPC and a parallel for your PC).....you really wouldnt lose the floppy cause you have one on your pc anyways...all you would have to do is just transfer sounds from floppy to zip and take them to your mpc drive and do whatever......Trust me, its gonna be alright...just let go of the floppy bena.... :wink:
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By Lampdog Tue Nov 04, 2003 6:27 pm
Swissmaster Cheese wrote:...or get an internal one.....it seems like you want to get a zip so you dont want to have to deal with the floppy, yet you insist that the floppy stays when the most obvious answer is to get rid of the thing....not trying to be facetious or anything but just cop yourself two atapi sip drives(an internal one for your MPC and a parallel for your PC).....you really wouldnt lose the floppy cause you have one on your pc anyways...all you would have to do is just transfer sounds from floppy to zip and take them to your mpc drive and do whatever......Trust me, its gonna be alright...just let go of the floppy bena.... :wink:

I knew when I read the beginning that you were going to say get an internal one, I just threw away another one of my boys floppydrives 2 nights ago and threw in an internal drive for him. Had him running in about an hour with no problem. Only prob I had was I forgot to set the little jumper on the drive to the side opposite of the power. After that it was zip city for my boy. He loaded one of my zips and was blown away by the speed. Another happy customer.. So yeah, I say the same as SWISS, let go of the floppy Bena, it'll be alright.
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By Swissmaster Cheese Tue Nov 04, 2003 6:39 pm
Lampdog wrote:
Swissmaster Cheese wrote:...or get an internal one.....it seems like you want to get a zip so you dont want to have to deal with the floppy, yet you insist that the floppy stays when the most obvious answer is to get rid of the thing....not trying to be facetious or anything but just cop yourself two atapi sip drives(an internal one for your MPC and a parallel for your PC).....you really wouldnt lose the floppy cause you have one on your pc anyways...all you would have to do is just transfer sounds from floppy to zip and take them to your mpc drive and do whatever......Trust me, its gonna be alright...just let go of the floppy bena.... :wink:

I knew when I read the beginning that you were going to say get an internal one, I just threw away another one of my boys floppydrives 2 nights ago and threw in an internal drive for him. Had him running in about an hour with no problem. Only prob I had was I forgot to set the little jumper on the drive to the side opposite of the power. After that it was zip city for my boy. He loaded one of my zips and was blown away by the speed. Another happy customer.. So yeah, I say the same as SWISS, let go of the floppy Bena, it'll be alright.


heheh, word....It seems like thats the only kind of advice I can give on this board nowadays....Its like "Help, I just got an MPC2kxl...what now"..I say "get an internal one"....."daddy whats this rash on my tumm tumm?"...I say, "get an internal one"...thats my answer for everything now.....I just got done installing a zip on my friend's 2kxl and an 8 outs on both our machines(I finally got the right one)...i'm like the unofficial tech support of our crew....The NON FLOPPY POSSE.....
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By its bena Tue Nov 04, 2003 7:10 pm
appreciate the responses. You guys have obviously had the machine for longer than myself, so I'll take your word of advice. I guess i sounded stubborn about the floppy because Im not trying to shell out too much money (2 zip drives)

....can you throw me a price range/recommendation on an internal zip..and one for my computer as well which I will need. I have a gateway, win 98SE.

Thanks yall. slight sigh of relief...except for money wasted on the external piece of sh*t.

ed

By elmacaco Tue Nov 04, 2003 7:18 pm
did you hook up the zip with both units powered off? did you power on the zip first?

if not, that could blow the fuse.
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By Lampdog Tue Nov 04, 2003 9:05 pm
Swissmaster Cheese wrote:i'm like the unofficial tech support of our crew....The NON FLOPPY POSSE.....

You hit it right on the head with me. I handle everything with my peeps from windows registry problems to how to burn an audio CD, to installing software, to any little thing they need. I've built and fixed so much hardware and software for my peeps and have never charged man I could have been rich by now.. ggeeeeezzzz.. So I feel you on that crew tech position. That's my unofficial job as well.

By mpc3000 Thu Nov 06, 2003 5:07 am
"I get a zip drive off ebay"

I did not see anywhere that you mentioned that you got a SCSI Zip. Did you? Just have to clear that up first since connecting a parallel Zp can cause that behavior.
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By Lampdog Fri Nov 07, 2003 7:34 am
its bena wrote:appreciate the responses. You guys have obviously had the machine for longer than myself, so I'll take your word of advice. I guess i sounded stubborn about the floppy because Im not trying to shell out too much money (2 zip drives)
....can you throw me a price range/recommendation on an internal zip..and one for my computer as well which I will need. I have a gateway, win 98SE.


I bought each of my internal 250's brand new for exactly $59.99 at a local PC store. You might be able to find some on the net a tad bit cheaper depending on how hard you search for it.