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CF Drive for Emax II

2014-07-07 by bzangy@...

Hi!

Could anyone recommend an external SCSI CF drive for the Emax II? I checked the database and the model listed there isn't available on Ebay as far as I can see.

I bought this:

EMU Ensoniq Compact Flash Card reader recorder sampler SCSI external RW ASR

EMU Ensoniq Compact Flash Card reader recorder sampl...

EMU Ensoniq Compact Flash Card reader recorder sampler SCSI external RW ASR in Musical Instruments, Pro Audio Equipment, Samplers & Sequencers | ...

View on www.ebay.co.uk

Preview by Yahoo

But although the drive is recognised by my Emax II and appears to format a CF card, it won't save banks.

So, just wondering is there was some obvious thing I'm missing or an alternative out there?

Re: [emax] CF Drive for Emax II

2014-07-07 by Ted Summers

I'm surprised that if it formats it won't save banks, this is odd.

I haven't tested those....

http://www.ebay.com/itm/HOT-SWAP-SCSI-FLASH-CARD-READER-WRITER-DRIVE-for-AKAI-MPC2000XL-/371082201101?pt=US_Other_Pro_Audio&hash=item566639080dhttp://www.ebay.com/itm/HOT-SWAP-SCSI-FLASH-CARD-READER-WRITER-DRIVE-for-AKAI-MPC2000XL-/371082201101?pt=US_Other_Pro_Audio&hash=item566639080d

This is a PCD-60b and works with Emax - I have tested one myself successfully.
Please note that you don't want to use large flash, and always buy slow flash.
For emax 2, use 1GB if you have an 8MB Emax 2.
basically the math is: max bank size (which your emax2 memory determines) x 100 banks = flash size

8MB x100 = 800 MB

4MB x 100 = 400MB, etc

No purpose in buying flash that is bigger than you will ever use....

but since you format successfully- I don't understand why you can't save a bank.... the drive may not be your problem.

Please also note that while a drive may support hot swap, Emax does not.

You can corrupt your HD catalog if you are hot-swapping.

Regards,
Ted

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On Mon, Jul 7, 2014 at 7:27 AM, bzangy@... [emax] <emax@yahoogroups.com> wrote:

Hi!

Could anyone recommend an external SCSI CF drive for the Emax II? I checked the database and the model listed there isn't available on Ebay as far as I can see.

I bought this:

EMU Ensoniq Compact Flash Card reader recorder sampler SCSI external RW ASR

EMU Ensoniq Compact Flash Card reader recorder sampl...
EMU Ensoniq Compact Flash Card reader recorder sampler SCSI external RW ASR in Musical Instruments, Pro Audio Equipment, Samplers & Sequencers | ...

View on www.ebay.co.uk

Preview by Yahoo

But although the drive is recognised by my Emax II and appears to format a CF card, it won't save banks.

So, just wondering is there was some obvious thing I'm missing or an alternative out there?

Re: [emax] CF Drive for Emax II

2014-07-07 by Ted Summers

it could also be a bad media adapter.....

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On Mon, Jul 7, 2014 at 9:04 AM, Ted Summers <djtbs1@...> wrote:

I'm surprised that if it formats it won't save banks, this is odd.

I haven't tested those....

http://www.ebay.com/itm/HOT-SWAP-SCSI-FLASH-CARD-READER-WRITER-DRIVE-for-AKAI-MPC2000XL-/371082201101?pt=US_Other_Pro_Audio&hash=item566639080dhttp://www.ebay.com/itm/HOT-SWAP-SCSI-FLASH-CARD-READER-WRITER-DRIVE-for-AKAI-MPC2000XL-/371082201101?pt=US_Other_Pro_Audio&hash=item566639080d

This is a PCD-60b and works with Emax - I have tested one myself successfully.
Please note that you don't want to use large flash, and always buy slow flash.
For emax 2, use 1GB if you have an 8MB Emax 2.
basically the math is: max bank size (which your emax2 memory determines) x 100 banks = flash size
8MB x100 = 800 MB
4MB x 100 = 400MB, etc

No purpose in buying flash that is bigger than you will ever use....

but since you format successfully- I don't understand why you can't save a bank.... the drive may not be your problem.

Please also note that while a drive may support hot swap, Emax does not.

You can corrupt your HD catalog if you are hot-swapping.

Regards,
Ted

On Mon, Jul 7, 2014 at 7:27 AM, bzangy@... [emax] <emax@yahoogroups.com> wrote:

Hi!

Could anyone recommend an external SCSI CF drive for the Emax II? I checked the database and the model listed there isn't available on Ebay as far as I can see.

I bought this:

EMU Ensoniq Compact Flash Card reader recorder sampler SCSI external RW ASR

EMU Ensoniq Compact Flash Card reader recorder sampl...
EMU Ensoniq Compact Flash Card reader recorder sampler SCSI external RW ASR in Musical Instruments, Pro Audio Equipment, Samplers & Sequencers | ...

View on www.ebay.co.uk

Preview by Yahoo

But although the drive is recognised by my Emax II and appears to format a CF card, it won't save banks.

So, just wondering is there was some obvious thing I'm missing or an alternative out there?

Re: CF Drive for Emax II

2014-07-07 by bzangy@...

Thank you very much, Ted!

This is also what puzzles me: the drive is found successfully on the SCSI chain (once I reset an internal jumper to make it ID as 1), the card is found and it is formatted successfully. Then, it appears as writable, displays 99% free on the Emax II but I cannot save. So frustrating!

I've tried loads of different cards from 256meg up to 4gig, some of which I've partitioned using EMXP, some not. Can't get anything to work. *sigh*

Well, I got fed up and ordered a SCSI Zip off Ebay earlier so let's see if I have any more joy with that. Though solid-state storage is still my dream....

Re: CF Drive for Emax II

2014-07-08 by bzangy@...

Ooh, also, thank you for the link! They apparently don't ship to the UK but I've emailed them to see if I can persuade them. :-D

Re: CF Drive for Emax II

2014-07-08 by xeelox@...

>>Please also note that while a drive may support hot swap, Emax does not. You can corrupt your HD catalog if you are hot-swapping.

Interesting. Is this true for any drive connected to the scsi chain or just the boot drive can't be hot swapped?

I don't own a Zip drive but I was under the impression you could swap one of those disks w/o powering down. Is that not true?

Thanks,

Jim

Re: [emax] Re: CF Drive for Emax II

2014-07-08 by Ted Summers

A zip drive works more like a floppy and has a disk change sensor in the mechanism. Flash media drives don't work in quite the same way.

I am just going by my experience.... Hot swap of flash type media have given me corrupted catalog / HD errors .. happened to me on different drives on different Emaxes....

YMMV, but again, I don't recommend swapping flash.

-T

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On Tue, Jul 8, 2014 at 9:02 AM, xeelox@... [emax] <emax@yahoogroups.com> wrote:

>>Please also note that while a drive may support hot swap, Emax does not. You can corrupt your HD catalog if you are hot-swapping.

Interesting. Is this true for any drive connected to the scsi chain or just the boot drive can't be hot swapped?

I don't own a Zip drive but I was under the impression you could swap one of those disks w/o powering down. Is that not true?

Thanks,

Jim

Re: CF Drive for Emax II

2014-07-08 by xeelox@...

Good to know. I wonder what would happen when using the plus os to change from scsi device 0 to say scsi device 1, then swapping the media in device 0 whose catalog is not actively in use, and using the os to go back to device 0.

Re: [emax] Re: CF Drive for Emax II

2014-07-08 by JAMIE logan

yes an no as ted explains the cpu when loading a hd makes up a macro of the hd catalog this lets it see all the folders on the hd when you remove a disk and insert another it still has the other disks catalog and can put errors on the hd or cf card or zip

the proper way to do it is to change to floppy drive first before removing the hd zip cf this then lets the cpu to look at the floppy disk and its catalog and so deletes the information of the hd in its memory and as there is no disk in floppy will just let you know now you can remove the hd cf zip and place in the new one when you access the scsi it will do a new look up catalog table of the cf hd or zip this stops you from errors

some samplers like the asr10 and eps16+ if you dont do the floppy trick and remove a cf card or zip and put in a new disk and then you try to load something it goes on a constant loop looking for the original macro catalog file that was previously stored in its memory

i have had others akai mpc3000 that get checksum errors by just swapping cards and adding extra samples and it has added corrupted data

remember this devices came out before removable drives when a 20mb drive was considered huge at the time the syquest drives came out a little later but still samplers have never had the atapi protocol but do have rescanning of scsi bus so that the catalog tables could be updated

we are sticking in modern tech into old tech even though the cf readers and scsi are also old tech now they came out 10-15 years after the machine were built and many of them were obsolete many years before these devices came out

i find it good practice to change the loading device to floppy then back to the scsi after the disk changed has happen once set to floppy disk

the asr10 works properly like this and not crashing the machine

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On 8 July 2014 17:32, Ted Summers djtbs1@... [emax] <emax@yahoogroups.com> wrote:

A zip drive works more like a floppy and has a disk change sensor in the mechanism. Flash media drives don't work in quite the same way.

I am just going by my experience.... Hot swap of flash type media have given me corrupted catalog / HD errors .. happened to me on different drives on different Emaxes....

YMMV, but again, I don't recommend swapping flash.

-T

On Tue, Jul 8, 2014 at 9:02 AM, xeelox@... [emax] <emax@yahoogroups.com> wrote:

>>Please also note that while a drive may support hot swap, Emax does not. You can corrupt your HD catalog if you are hot-swapping.

Interesting. Is this true for any drive connected to the scsi chain or just the boot drive can't be hot swapped?

I don't own a Zip drive but I was under the impression you could swap one of those disks w/o powering down. Is that not true?

Thanks,

Jim

Re: CF Drive for Emax II

2014-07-10 by bzangy@...

This is all fascinating stuff, thanks for the info, everyone!