Exchange tips and tricks for the Akai MPC4000
Byr.j. kaneao music Wed Dec 17, 2003 1:34 am
aloha everyone out there in mpc land!well just got it after years of people telling me i need one in the studio.but here's my question and i hope someone will be able to shine some light on this.ok situation: i bought a mpc4000le and realized i needed to put my own hd and some added ram in there. so i went out and got a maxtor 160 gb hd! " i know very big"lol! and a stick of ram 256 mb and istalled it pretty darn easily.but here's the catch!i've been formatting this disk from about 10:00 pm last night it's now 3:31pm the next day! and it's still formatting.i came to the conclusion that either the hd is to big or that it's such a big hd that it takes that much longer.please if anyone has a clue what's going on please e-mail me or something.it's been crazy for me! :cry: :evil: :wink: :?: mahalo nui loa

By RobV Wed Dec 17, 2003 11:24 am
I don't know much about the MPC 4000 'cos I ain't got one yet.
I think the maximum hard drive size for the MPC 4000 is 80 GB.
For the formatting operation, I'm not sure but you might be able to format in from your computer if you got windows Xp, choose "FAT32" format...

hope it helps
Byr.j. kaneao music Wed Dec 17, 2003 8:04 pm
what do you mean?formatting thru maybe the usb or something or taking out the hd and formatting it as part of my pc running xp?thank you for your help!

By RobV Thu Dec 18, 2003 12:11 am
you need to connect your hard drive in your PC (on the motherboard via an IDE ribbon cable)
then you launch your windows XP and format it from your "configuration panel"
i don't know if you see what I mean, it's really a basic operation
do you know someone around you who knows a little bit about PCs and who could help you ?

I searched on google and found this article : http://www.pcmech.com/byopc/ it might help you

hope my help has been relevant

good luck in the operation !

(and I hope my poor english is understandable :) )

By MPC_Producer Thu Dec 18, 2003 2:33 am
Somewhere I read the maximum drive size is 120GB. This may or may not be accurate. Regardless, I know for a fact that the same trouble can occur with a 120GB drive with the format time taking forever. The remedy is to format the drive as FAT32 in your PC and place it in the MPC. The only problem is that Windows XP has trouble formatting it that way. You have to use an older OS, such as Windows 98. Was this drive partitioned? This might be your problem right there. If you just took the drive out of a cardboard box and put it in the MPC I cannot imagine it getting partitioned and formatted automatically. My guess is the MPC is trying to format the drive but it has no way to detect an error condition that the drive is not partitioned. So it just keeps trying to format. None of this drive preparation procedure seems to be documented anywhere. When I was buying my first MPC4000 over a year ago I could not find any information on this subject. In the end I bought the Plus version.

By RobV Thu Dec 18, 2003 6:55 pm
there is a limit on FAT32 wich is 127GB if i remember well
you should buy a 80GB hard drive for your MPc, it might be easier to operate...
By s. tizzle Mon Jan 05, 2004 9:11 am
i jus installed a maxtor 160gb too. should i still leave it alone???? it's been formatting for over 20hours already. i still think the drive can be formatted but i may be wrong, can anyone tell me if it's working who has had the same experience. i do NOT want to spend money on another drive. please tell me what can i do to still use the drive.
By s. tizzle Mon Jan 05, 2004 10:48 am
r.j. kaneao music, what did you end up doing to resolve your problem formatting your drive??? this should help me out big time since you are using the same drive.

Byr.j. kaneao music Tue Jan 06, 2004 12:01 pm
s.tizzle

i ended up just putting a seagate 80gb in and returning the 160 gb.after the fact i found out the limit was like 120gb drive..aloha

By misterv Tue Jan 06, 2004 10:18 pm
"there is a limit on FAT32 wich is 127GB if i remember well "

the MPC 4000 uses FAT 32, thus using 160GB might not be possible

By s. tizzle Tue Jan 06, 2004 11:38 pm
i jus exchanged my maxtor 160gb for an 80gb. i had intially bought this 160gb drive brand new from a friend for $100. no receipt so can't return or exchange it at a store so i called maxtor and they said they would exchange the 160 for an 80. i'm taking a loss on drive size. called akai and they sent me a list of compatible drives and the 80gig ddrives weren't maxtors. i didn't exchange for one of those 40gig maxtors that was on the compatibility list because i would take too much of a loss so.........

does anyone on here know if a maxtor 80gig will work ?? i hope i won't have another problem formatting issue again.

By misterv Wed Jan 07, 2004 3:32 pm
hey, could u publish that list of compatible drives, it would be a great help for others

thanx

By s. tizzle Wed Jan 07, 2004 3:50 pm
MPC4000 Drive List July-03
MPC OS
Version Manufacturer Drive Maker Model Tested Media Int/Ext Type Drive Interface Status Notes
Teac CD-W512EB Logictec LCW-T1610BSU CD/RW Internal USB1.1/SCS 50 pin SCSI 2 OK see note 1
1.1 Teac CD-RW540EKB Teac CD-W540E CD/RW Internal ATAPI 40 pin ATA OK see note 2, 3
1.1 Plextor PX-W4012TA Plextor CD/RW Internal ATAPI 40 pin ATA OK
1.03 Plextor PX-S88TU Plextor PX-S88T CD/RW USB USB OK see note 4
1.03 Plextor PX-W2410A Plextor PX-W2410A CD/RW ATA ATA OK see note 4
1.03 Plextor PX-W2410TU Plextor PX-W2410TU CD/RW ATA USB OK see note 4
1.03 Teac LCW-T1610BSU Logictec CD-W512EB CD/RW USB/50 pin OK see note 1
1.03 Iomega Zip Drive Iomega Zip 100 100 MB USB USB USB OK
1.03 Iomega Zip Drive Iomega Zip 250 250 MB ATA ATA OK
1.13 Iomega Zip Drive Iomega Zip 250 250 MB USB USB USB OK
1.03 Olympus MOS3392S Olympus 640 MB MO USB USB OK
1.03 Fujitsu Mockingbird Fujitsu M5213E 640 MG MO SCSI SCSI OK
1.03 Fujitsu MPE3102AT Fujitsu MPE3102AT 10.2 GB HD Internal ATA 40 pin ATA OK
1.03 Fujitsu MPG3204AT Fujitsu MPG3204AT 20 GB HD Internal ATA 40 pin ATA OK
1.03 IBM Deskstar 40 GV IBM DTLA-305020 20 GB HD Internal ATAPI ATA OK
1.03 IBM Deskstar 60 GXP IBM IC35L040AVER07 40 GB HD Internal U-ATA U-ATA OK
1.03 IBM Deskstar 120 GXP IBM Deskstar 120 GXP 80 GB HD Internal U-ATA U-ATA OK
1.03 Western Digital WD Caviar Western Digital WD400BB 40 GB HD Internal U-ATA U-ATA OK
1.13 Seagate Barracuda 18 LP Seagate ST39175LW 9 GB HD SCSI SCSI OK
1.13 Seagate Barracuda ATA IV Seagate ST340014A 40 GB HD Internal U-ATA 40 pin ATA OK
1.13 Seagate Barracuda ATA IV Seagate ST340016A 40 GB HD Internal U-ATA 40 pin ATA OK
1.13 Seagate Barracuda ATA IV Seagate ST380021A 80 GB HD ATA 40 pin ATA OK
1.03 Maxtor Diamond Max 6800 Maxtor 91020U3 9 GB HD Internal ATAPI ATA OK
1.13 Maxtor Diamond Max Maxtor D740X-6L 40 GB HD Internal U-ATA 40 pin ATA OK
Drives that are not recommended
1.03 Yamaha CRW-8824 SX Yamaha CRW-8824S CD/RW SCSI SCSI NG see note 5
1.03 Yamaha CDR400 Yamaha CDR400 CD/RW SCSI SCSI NG see note 5
1.03 Yamaha CRW8424SX Yamaha CRW8424S CD/RW SCSI SCSI NG see note 5
1.03 Yamaha CRW-2100SX-VK Yamaha CRW2100S CD/RW SCSI SCSI NG see note 5
Notes:
1. OK with SCSI, USB no good
2. Noise on headphone out.
3. No warranty of digital audio out.
4. Tested for Read only
5. Drive not responding
NG = No Good OK = Drive ok for use

By misterv Wed Jan 07, 2004 4:08 pm
thanx a lot :)