SCSI Microtech PCD47B in MPC2000 classic PROBLEMS!!!

Hello folks

Got a PCD47B off of eBay. Quite cheap too!

Was going to do internal solder mod but figured I could just do power cable mod and then run DB25 from outside case through a drilled hole in chassis (my MPC is totally beat up anyway) to an adaptor for 50 PIN internal cable.

Did the power cable mod and got suitable cables, new 512Mb CF card, connected it all, fired the MPC up and ... nothing ... oh apart from a green light briefly during power up.

I just get "SCSI not ready" on three consecutive SCSI IDs (as you'd expect as it takes three IDs).

//

So things I've looked at and notes/thoughts.

The CF card has no formatting on it that I know of. I assume it's factory formatted to some kind of DOS system. My Mac recognised it anyway.

Yes it's terminated. Tried it terminated and unterminated anyway.

Cable right way round (no middle notch in my cable)? Red edge of ribbon cable nearest to power connector? IE pin 1? Tried both ways round anyway!

Tried various configurations of SCSI ID jumpers. Does seem to effect which SCSI IDs are reported as "not ready".

So is it my fancy cable? Well I have an external Yamaha SCSI CD-ROM that the MPC recognises (altho I don't have any MPC CD-ROMS so hard to confirm it's totally working) but MPC does correctly identify it. So I swapped out CD-ROM and card reader in the case. Still "SCSI not ready".

So Googling and searching here I come across the firmware issue. I found firmware 3.2 but turns out you need a SCSI equipped PC to flash the new firmware ... YEAH RIGHT! Ooh look there's a SCSI equipped PC beside that Unicorn over there! Where the hell am I gonna find a SCSI equipped PC ... it's 2007!!

Anyway, does anybody think that's the likely problem? Does the read only firmware create "SCSI not ready" errors?

Finally, I reckon SCSI stands for

So Completely Stupidly Idiotic



Although win some loose some, see my other post "£60"

That's weird. I've put 2 of em in and never had that problem. You're sure it's not the 50-25 pin adapter that's messed? Are you sure you're hitting with the right voltage? (Make sure it's 5v not 12v) Also, this sounds weird, but I've heard of these working when they're not terminated. I'd check your cables too.
You've got the OS on the CF too right?
Also try sacrificing a goat to the SCSI gods. That's worked for me.. some of the time.

Peter Project wrote:You've got the OS on the CF too right?

Ooh! No I haven't. I assumed first that the reader itself would be recognised as a drive and then you'd format the card and then save an OS to it from the MPC? I'm booting my MPC from floppy.

How do I put the OS on it? Just download and transfer from PC/Mac?

Peter Project wrote:Make sure it's 5v not 12v

I'm using the floppy drive cable, that's 5V yeah?

Peter Project wrote:Also try sacrificing a goat to the SCSI gods. That's worked for me.. some of the time.

I haven't got a goat but the neighbour's cat comes over quite a lot ... will she do?

Hey Peter. You're a genius! Put the OS on an (MS-DOS formatted) CF card with my Mac and it recognised it at last! The MPC still seemed to want me to format it and then copy the OS from floppy to CF card before it would behave normally including booting from the CF card.

Cool! Only remaining question is, have you ever got the PCMCIA slot to work with an adaptor and second CF card? I've been trying that quickly and I seem to get a SCSI not ready on the PCMCIA/CF combination. I'm not too bothered as the dedicated CF slot is now working.

Also I think my hacked cable was a bad idea .. I had it all plugged in and I think I might have been using a 12V supply for the reader by mistake (from a PC case) and I noticed the LCD go dim. Next I could smell burning and then a column of smoke started rising from the MPC!



So I quickly turned it all off. I think it was the voltage regulator beside the SCSI port. It seems fine. Checked SCSI operations with a Zip drive and that's all fine and the LCD is nice and bright again.

I have a different cable I can use now as the PSU exploded on an external SCSI CD-ROM drive I got so now I can pull the cable out of that. Have you ever had a PSU blow on you? Jesus it scared the crap out of me!



Anyway I'm going to put my MPC back together and keep away from mains power supplies for a while

Hey.
I thought you had the card reader instead of the floppy. How do you have them both hooked up?

You might be getting in a little over my head. I'm good at modding, but bad a fixing. Where are you getting the power from? For mine, I tapped into the power connecter next to the floppy drive. There are 2 grounds, one 12v, and one 5v. I just took the 5v, and a ground to the appropriate pins on the card reader (if you take off the top of the card reader, it's printed on the circuit board. Make sure you get this right, or sh*t will smoke.

As far as blowing stuff up... that's out of my league.... Good luck.

Hey Peter

I had the card reader and floppy running at the same time only with the card reader in an external enclosure. With the card reader installed in the MPC I used an adaptor like this ..

http://1226354.estore.networksolutionsd ... bok?no=215

.. that I made. I got the 4 pin connector from a broken floppy drive.

Since I last posted I also got the PCMCIA slot to work by fiddling with the jumpers.

Cheers
Jim

jellyjim wrote:Hey Peter. You're a genius! Put the OS on an (MS-DOS formatted) CF card with my Mac and it recognised it at last! The MPC still seemed to want me to format it and then copy the OS from floppy to CF card before it would behave normally including booting from the CF card.

Cool! Only remaining question is, have you ever got the PCMCIA slot to work with an adaptor and second CF card? I've been trying that quickly and I seem to get a SCSI not ready on the PCMCIA/CF combination. I'm not too bothered as the dedicated CF slot is now working.

Also I think my hacked cable was a bad idea .. I had it all plugged in and I think I might have been using a 12V supply for the reader by mistake (from a PC case) and I noticed the LCD go dim. Next I could smell burning and then a column of smoke started rising from the MPC!



So I quickly turned it all off. I think it was the voltage regulator beside the SCSI port. It seems fine. Checked SCSI operations with a Zip drive and that's all fine and the LCD is nice and bright again.

I have a different cable I can use now as the PSU exploded on an external SCSI CD-ROM drive I got so now I can pull the cable out of that. Have you ever had a PSU blow on you? Jesus it scared the **** out of me!



Anyway I'm going to put my MPC back together and keep away from mains power supplies for a while

I've got the PCD47-B in an external enclosure (from those special people), and I boot off of CF card in a PCMCIA-to-CF card adapter, and use the CF slot to transfer samples between my PC and my MPC.

Peace,
KM

Has anyone ever tried using one of those PCMCIA to USB adapters? Maybe use a USB flash drive?

Sweet, I just bought a PCD47 off ebay and I already have an DB25 to SCSI converter.

So instead of doing mods / solder work on the motherboard I instead adding another DB25 port right above the existing DB25 SCSI port, on the back. So I be able to use a short / external DB25 cable running out and back.... or to an external drive and back. I also have an old 6GB SCSI drive but I can replace that with a couple compact flash cards... this is gonna be sick!!!

-dJ dAb