Technical questions for the MPC2000xl and the MPC2000
By goldenchild Mon May 14, 2007 9:31 pm
first off, sorry Lamb for posting this again, under a new topic, but converting the CF-Card in Fat didnt work at all.
Neither under dos, WIN we..
This way in not adding to a topping from ages ago, i hope more people to see my post and maybe one of them can help.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Problem:

..when i convert my Sandisk 2 GB CF Card in Fat under Windows, the MPC2000XL cant read it.
On the other Side, when i convert it in the MPC and put it in the Cardreader of my PC, it shows me Capazity of
only 680 MB (the largest Partition Size i can choose in the MPC..)

What the heck is goin on ?
Do i need a tool for Windows XP, so my Cardreader shows the right capazity, or all Partitions on the CF that has been formatted in the MPC,
or is there a trick update or something to make it work ?
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In the last topic, there were some guys in this forum, who could actually make it work to show the full 2GB Sandisk CF Card in the MPC and still get access to it over Windows.(to the whole 2 GB)

I really like to get to know how, cause i`ve spent days and days with this shit and finally want to get it done.

The guy i bought the card reader from, wrote me this:



First, you cannot read or write any MPC formatted media using Windows (or
Mac, for that matter). The MPC (and most all Akai samplers) use a format
that is incompatible with the Windows file system. Even trying to read or
write the media will render it unusable by the MPC and it will need to be
reformatted on the MPC. This is a big drawback to the MPC samplers and one
of the reasons so many people buy media card drives to transfer samples
between their PCs and their MPC.

This is why you need two media cards - one formatted for DOS (FAT) and one
formatted by the MPC. You use the DOS-formatted media card to move the files
from your PC to the MPC, then once you load the wav files into the MPC,
assign them to pads and tweak them, you would want to save the MPC program
out to the MPC formatted card, so you could load the completed program in
the future.

As for formatting the CF card in Windows, you should put it into the PC card
reader, then right-click on the device and select Format. This will bring up
a dialog box. Under File System, be sure you select FAT (not FAT32 or NTFS).
Also click the Quick Format option at the bottom. This will format the card
in DOS. You can then copy wav or other files readable by the MPC to the
card, do a Safe Removal of the card in Windows (click the icon down in the
right corner of the System Tray to access the Safe Removal dialog). Then you
can put the card into your MPC and should be able to see and load the wav
files into the MPC. Our customers do this all the time, so it should also
work for you without any problems.

I'm sorry - I assumed you already knew about the MPC/Windows file format
incompatibility. But you didn't ask about any of this stuff in your emails
or I would have told you about the limitations of the MPC file format.

-END-


Is that really the only option ?

Cause, when i have to switch cards all the time and copy each single arrangement into Ram and then to the "WIN-Card" to make a back up in my PC, that really sucks..


Thanks in Advance to anyone who take`s some time to read this.
User avatar

By Lampdog Tue May 15, 2007 1:36 am
Not all cards work properly.

I use ONLY ONE 512mb lexar compact flash, OS 1.14. Formatted on pc fat/fat16, no problem at all. Maybe the mpc doesn't like your card. Maybe you need OS 1.20.

LAMPDOG, lmao.

By goldenchild Tue May 15, 2007 6:41 am
Lampdog wrote:Not all cards work properly.

I use ONLY ONE 512mb lexar compact flash, OS 1.14. Formatted on pc fat/fat16, no problem at all. Maybe the mpc doesn't like your card. Maybe you need OS 1.20.

LAMPDOG, lmao.



I have the OS 1.20 and the card does actually work on PC and MPC, when formatting in the MPC, but over WIN i can only use up to 680mb of it and not 2gb as the cards normal size..

When i format the card in WIN, it shows me the right size 2GB, but then the i cant get accesc to it over the MPC..

Byharlej Tue May 15, 2007 7:02 am
I only have experience with 512 MB compact flash card as well. It works very good, no need to get another card formated in windows and thing like that.
I simply take the card and copy from pc to the mpc with it and the other way it works the same of course.
I just ordered two 1024 MB compact flash cards yesterday and will check if they work properly with my mpc. The other one is for my su700 sampler,need to check it too.
I run 1.20 OS. If I don't forget, I'll write back in this topic to report how it goes with this capacity.
User avatar

By ReckOne Tue May 15, 2007 9:37 am
I have a 1 GB card...I could only use 512MB with OS 1.14 but after I installed 1.20 I could use the full 1 GB...

I had some trouble with mpc vs pc regarding formatting the card. I had already written to the card when it wasn't formatted with the mpc and that worked fine. When I wanted to format it with WinXP in fat16, WinXP wouldn't let me. So I installed mpc-editor and that did the trick...

By goldenchild Tue May 15, 2007 9:52 am
ReckOne wrote:I have a 1 GB card...I could only use 512MB with OS 1.14 but after I installed 1.20 I could use the full 1 GB...

I had some trouble with mpc vs pc regarding formatting the card. I had already written to the card when it wasn't formatted with the mpc and that worked fine. When I wanted to format it with WinXP in fat16, WinXP wouldn't let me. So I installed mpc-editor and that did the trick...


what does the MPC-Editor have to do with it ?
how did you do it ?
User avatar

By ReckOne Tue May 15, 2007 9:57 am
Well, at that point I could read/write the card perfectly with the mpc. Windows XP couldn't read the card so I couldn't transfer files between my pc and mpc.

According to Windows XP the card was unformatted. When I tried to format it with XP methods I always got this error that the card was in RAW format and that it couldn't be formatted or something.

So I took a wild guess and downloaded mpc editor to see if I could format the card with that in FAT16. And it worked. Can't remember exactly but in a menu there was an entry format or something.