TEAC FD 235 HF floppy drive in MPC60

The 3.10 OS doesn't come on floppy disk, but on chips.

Aha! Didn't know that. I came from an xl and the OS's were installed by floppy...Now this is finally some good news...

Bedankt Lotuz! Mijn dag is goed nu...

[NL]Wacht maar totdat je de prijs van die chips ziet. Reken daar de verzendkosten, douanerechten en BTW bij. Dan lach je al wat minder.

Ik ga misschien samen met een ander die OS bestellen. Dan scheelt dat weer in de verzendkosten. Laat maar weten als je interesse hebt om hierin mee te doen. Het doorsturen vanuit NL naar BE zal niet zoveel kosten, denk ik.[/NL]

Version 3.10 Software costs $195 ($95 to registered owners of our older 1996 V3.0 software, please call us to purchase) and may be installed in an Akai MPC60, MPC60-II or ASQ10. It comes on 4 chips and includes a 235 page user manual, installation manual and 4 new sound disks. Installation is simple -- just remove a few screws and lift the top panel to expose the 4 software chips, remove them from their sockets using a blade screwdriver or knife edge, and plug in the new software chips. Most users install it themselves.

http://www.rogerlinndesign.com/products/mpc60.shtml

[VL]Ja, ik weet wat het kost...Ik heb m'n research wel wat gedaan (buiten dat ik dan niet wist dat het in de vorm van chips komt). Maar die mpc staat al paar maand nu bij mij en ik wil die rotzak gewoon up and running hebben asap, het bedrag speelt nu geen rol meer bij mij (het is niet dat het 1000'en euro's kost ofzo en ik ben het kotsbeu om elke avond te zitten kloten met jumpers). Moest ik dat bestellen zou ik er waarschijnlijk ook direct die scsi kit bijnemen om toch weer die 50$ te besparen.

Misschien dat die floppy drives die ik heb momenteel niet werken omdat ik nog met OS 2.12 zit ofzo. Op de site van route66studios staat dat hun floppy werkt met OS 3.10. Als dat expliciet erop staat lijkt het me dat er toch wel een verschil is qua compatibiliteit...

Vandaar ook dat ik eerst die bak wil fixen vooraleer ik aan iets leuks kan denken zoals een emax
[/VL]

I thought f*ck it! I just ordered a floppy drive from VST. If that doesn't work it has to be the floppy disk drive controller...

Okay, just got a visit from a dude from ups and got my floppy drive...I must say the service was amazing when purchasing from VST.

Aparently VST sells a TEAC FD-235HF A549 drive.

I've searched high and low on the net for such a drive but couldn't find anybody selling them with a proper part number. Everybody I've emailed for a specific part number either replied they didn't have it or didn't reply at all. I haven't tested it yet but I'm going to in a minute...

Since I've tried other floppy drives (including a TEAC) with a jumper block on the back, I doubt this will work. I'm probably having a floppy drive controller problem I'm afraid...

I'll report back in half an hour or so when I tested the drive.

No success...

I always get the same error:

The area reserved for the file directory is damaged. (ff04)

I'm using true DD disks which I purchased brand new and which I can format with my eps and my computer so that shouldn't be the problem...

Guess it's back to square one and it's the floppy drive controller that needs replacing...great...just what I needed...

Since I read here that some people have trouble with formatting floppies but not with reading/writing them I tried to sample something and save it onto a floppy disk.

This time I got the error ff08:

A disk drive error occurred which indicates a problem with the electronics. Turn the power off and on again and if the problem still exists, please have the unit repaired at your nearest service center...

Great...

I wouldn't know a service center near me...The closest one I know would involve crossing the fuc|<in' ocean...

Anybody got some info or experience with this kind of problem?

Would my best bet be to get OS3.10, a SCSI board and an external hard drive or card reader?

Do you know if theese replacements will work on a s900?

What exactly do you mean by these replacements? If you're talking about the OS upgrade and the SCSI kit, I don't think so.

I don't know much about s900/s950 but seems like there's nobody so far that has successfully installed a card reader in an s900/s950. There's a thread on here somewhere about an ebook for the s950 where installing a card reader is mentioned.

Just got another email from dave from VST...Basically he gives up. I've had great support from him but now he says he needs to get his hands on my 60 to diagnose the problem further. He can't think of anything I could try at the moment.

Does anybody know some specialized service centers in western europe?

I don't wanna spend 500$ on the scsi kit and os upgrade if I'm not 100% sure that this will solve the problem of me not being able to save.

By the way, did anybody have any problems saving to floppies that were not floppy drive related? If so, please share some experiences of what was causing the problem.

Seems like my options now are:
- hope somebody can tell me that SCSI will solve my problem
- hope I get in contact with a local service center
- buy another one and start swapping parts to find out what the problem is, then repair it and sell one

Okay, I'm going for the record here of replying in my own thread...

I've contacted everybody I found on google that repairs mpc 60's or knows about it (some in europe, vst, forat, roger linn, ... ).

Dave from VST was great with the support but now he gave up.

Didn't get much replies from local people that repair mpc's but there was one who couldn't give me much info apart from bringing in my mpc.

But! Today I got a mail from Bruce at Forat. I explained him everything in detail and basically he told me that my floppy drive cable can't have a twist in it. I asked this question before and the reply was that that wouldn't be a problem.

So when I get home tonight I'm gonna try to take out the twist in my cable and try that. Otherwise I'm gonna order a straight cable and try that.

Bruce also told me that a SCSI kit would solve the problem.

I have some hope again now.

Man, seriously, if I can format a floppy disk with my 60 one of these days, I'm gonna have so much fun formatting a floppy!

Anybody know where to get a straight no-twist cable for an old mpc 60 apart from route66?

I'm not in the us and they require that I email them before purchasing. Fine by me but from previous experiences I know that I'll have to wait half a year or something until somebody replies.

Is there anyplace that sells the original dark grey with the blue line mpc cables?

Me again! So I tried everything AGAIN (again and again and again). I even took my old 2000xl floppy drive cable (which was a bit short but just to try that cable) but nothing.

So I'm waiting for a quotation on the service manual and I'll have to repair the electronics with that manual.

BTW, if this thread gets boring, I'll quit reporting, just let me know than...