CF Card Problem

Technical questions for the MPC2000xl and the MPC2000
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Re: CF Card Problem

By Coz Fri Aug 29, 2008 3:08 pm
The new card I got sent was 2gig... I guess the shop thought they were doing me a favour by sending me a bigger card but they weren't!

Anyway, after much formatting between the MP, the PC and MPC Editor, the only workable solution I found was to format with FAT32

I think this reduces the card down to 1gig but as a workaround it's fine. Try this before you buy another card just to see if it works... :wink:

Oh yeah, see if you can format with MPC Editor first seeing as your PC wont recognise the card anymore, then if that works try FAT32.
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Re: CF Card Problem

By Lampdog Fri Aug 29, 2008 3:09 pm
It's weird to hear the no atapi problems from someone who's installed alot of zip drives before cause it's the same exact install I swear, lol.

I never had any problems when installing zips or mcd's in several 2kxl for my mentally challenged homies, lol.




It's weird to actually hear someone have the sd drive working cause I've RARELY heard of that at all.
I have NEVER gotten an sd card to work, only cf's work for me for some odd azz reason. I think I only remember 1-2 people on the forums actually getting an sd card to work in an mpc. When I first got my mcd, I plugged it into my computer and I had all types of cards, 5-1 mcd, and all of my cards worked fine, mpc didn't like the sd though.

Put it in my 2kxl and ONLY the cf slot worked which was fine for me, cf was cheaper anyway.

Everything, the christmas tree (backwards ribbon cable) and all that stuff is crazy, I had problems with 120, I put my floppy back in and went back to 114 and that's where I stay to this day. I have 120 in storage, he'll never see the light of day anymore.
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Re: CF Card Problem

By arg.roots Fri Aug 29, 2008 3:14 pm
Coz wrote:The new card I got sent was 2gig... I guess the shop thought they were doing me a favour by sending me a bigger card but they weren't!

Anyway, after much formatting between the MP, the PC and MPC Editor, the only workable solution I found was to format with FAT32

I think this reduces the card down to 1gig but as a workaround it's fine. Try this before you buy another card just to see if it works... :wink:

Oh yeah, see if you can format with MPC Editor first seeing as your PC wont recognise the card anymore, then if that works try FAT32.


FAT32 are you sure? i thought FAT16 worked better?
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Re: CF Card Problem

By Coz Fri Aug 29, 2008 3:25 pm
Yep, I tried various FAT formats but only FAT32 worked for some reason. I had already formatted and re-formatted about 10 times before I landed on the FAT32 attempt.

Not sure if that made any difference though?

Re: CF Card Problem

By samoht Fri Aug 29, 2008 3:31 pm
how does this work?? 2 partitions. my pc doesn't even recognize the card?
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Re: CF Card Problem

By Coz Fri Aug 29, 2008 3:36 pm
It all sounds quite good until it says...

FAT32 volumes are not accessible from any other operating systems other than Windows 95 OSR2 and Windows 98


WTF??!

I'm gonna have to dig a little bit deeper to make sure everything is working as it appears to be... :?

Re: CF Card Problem

By roxstar Fri Aug 29, 2008 3:53 pm
Still not working. I've tried every card in my house! haha.
I'm looking at the connections on the back of the drive, and there is one pin missing..almost in the lower center. It looks like this wasn't a mistake tho.. it's not broken, so it's actually a 39 pin drive. The MPC's connector is 40 pin. Could this be my problem???
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Re: CF Card Problem

By Lampdog Fri Aug 29, 2008 4:38 pm
the missingpin is an industry standard way to "key" a connector so that you don't insert it the wrong way. Most newer female connectors are keyed as well in that same spot, no hole.

Did you go to SETUP on that load/save screen and choose ATAPI? I can't remember you saying yes/no cause wierdo had 2 threads going at the same time, wtf sam?!? I thought we were better than that. :lol:

Re: CF Card Problem

By roxstar Fri Aug 29, 2008 4:46 pm
Yea, i tried that, but when I go to the setup window from the LOAD/SAVE screen, I don't have the ATAPI option to choose. When scrolling, only, FLOPPY, SCSI 0-7 and F-ROM show up, and I tried it with the drive set to SLAVE and to MASTER. I don't have any other jumpers to toggle on the drive either. Jumper in = Slave, No jumpers = master. I read somewhere that the drive has to be set to master, but all this does is give a REALLY long delay to the MPC's start up.
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By Lampdog Fri Aug 29, 2008 5:40 pm
Try a different keyed cable, and or check to make sure the red/black power lines are good.
Yellow and black are not used..

Re: CF Card Problem

By roxstar Sat Aug 30, 2008 5:48 am
Ok, I went an bought another Ribbon cable, still no luck. I'm almost under the impression that the connector on the MPC maybe jacked up. When I bought the MPC, the previous owner had an internal HD installed (he kept that tho) so the IDE/ATAPI connector wasn't used, but I want to believe that if the connector was messed up, then the MPC probably wouldn't function correctly. I think the power cable is fine. The Drive powers up and reads the card at startup (it does this even with no ribbon cable connected).
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Re: CF Card Problem

By Lampdog Sat Aug 30, 2008 7:39 am
roxstar wrote:Ok, I went an bought another Ribbon cable, still no luck. I'm almost under the impression that the connector on the MPC maybe jacked up. When I bought the MPC, the previous owner had an internal HD installed (he kept that tho) so the IDE/ATAPI connector wasn't used, but I want to believe that if the connector was messed up, then the MPC probably wouldn't function correctly. I think the power cable is fine. The Drive powers up and reads the card at startup (it does this even with no ribbon cable connected).


Do the drive require drivers to be installed? It won't work if that's the case.
Check the specs of the drive online somewhere and see.

I don't know what else to tell you man, so many have problems installing mcd drives
and it sounds like you've covered everything I would cover if it were me. It's ridiculous.

Re: CF Card Problem

By scsiforsamplers.com Sat Aug 30, 2008 7:54 am
:D For any of you reading this (and other) horror stories about installing IDE/ATAPI drives, remember that we offer new Microtech PCD-25B SCSI card reader drives for internal installation that work every time, install in less than 30 minutes with no hassles, offer hotswap capability and give you two card slots for twice the online storage capacity.

Re: CF Card Problem

By roxstar Sun Aug 31, 2008 3:26 pm
I bought an internal ATAPI Zip drive and the MPC recognized it. It must have been a compatibility problem with the card reader. So if your looking to add a CF drive for the 2000XL, DO NOT buy the Addonics IDE digidrive unit. I believe the older IDE ultra drive works, but it also requires some PCMCIA card thing-a-me-jiggy that needs to be installed into that. Scsiforsamplers..I'll be calling you real soon! :)
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