"What Works, what doesn't". A Topic

[Bruce Graham]

Hi All;

Here I sit in Canada, with an HDR and a d8b, having difficulty getting info on what parts work when I can not find the original parts for these "Still Alive" boat anchors.

For example, I am making the plunge into SSD drives instead of the old fashion mechanical drives and am not sure what to look for or what brand works, and, more importantly, which don't.

Do they operate on SATA 1, or 2, or 3?

Does KingSpec SSD's work or does Patriot work more reliably?

What should I look for in an SSD Drive when looking to purchase? (all those numbers on the case of the drive or the spec sheets must mean something?)

I think I need a new ether-net card (as nothing else I have tried worked), for my HDR and have no idea which do or do not work, or what to look for or ask for when I find box full of them.

Can I use a CF (Compact Flash) as a storage media on my HDR, and if not, why I can't?

What kind of adaptor do I need for a CF to interface to IDE?

These and many other things I have come across are question that I do not know where to go to, to get answers.

I think, maybe, it should be here? The d8b Forum! The best, if not the only, place for all things Mackie d8b/HDR/MDR/SDR and where all the smarty pants guys are!

Perhaps this could be added to the DATBASE.

Any thoughts?

Thanks and cheers
Bruce

[arjepsen]

Hey Bruce.
I've been in your shoes. If you search through my posts, you'll probably be able to find answers to most of those questions.
Anyway, to summarize:
I also thought about using an ssd drive. The problem was the size limitation, and IIRC only sata 1 and 2 works.
In the end it was easier to use the CF card solution instead. I've made links to IDE - CF adapters like the one I used several times. Let me know if you need me to post it again.
Also - for the d8b you only need a small CF card - mine is 4gb, but you can easily do with smaller.
For the HDR I'm using a sandisk extreme 128 gb card.
Hope it helps.

[Bruce Graham]

Hey arjepsen;

Thanks for this. My hope was this info would be in 1 place, reducing the need to search, which can be very time consuming.

Anyway, I purchased a StarTech 3.5-Inch Drive Bay IDE to Single CF SSD Adapter Card Reader and a Sandisk Extreme 32GB Compact Flash Card CF 120MB/s 800x UDMA 7, hoping this would work. It formatted but only will operate as a Back-up drive. I mounted this is a Lian-Li RH10 hoping to not go the route of SSD's as there are hard to find. It is the SATA1/2 versus SATA3 compatibility.
So if you are using a Sandisk Extreme and I am using what appears to be the same, is it the Startech reader that is at fault? What did I miss?
Any help would be appreciated! Thanks
Also, the big issue I have is getting my HDR to run the FTP. Everything I have done thus far doesn't work so perhaps it is the ethernet card except I haven't seen any card on ebay (in the the HDR site), so I do not know what to look for. Any help there would also be appreciated as it is holding me up from "playing with Funk and Crash. I can't transfer down loaded audio files to my HDR.

Cheers
Bruce

[arjepsen]

I agree this info ought to be in one place.

Hmm.. my cf card works for recording, and it also did for another member here - dont remember exactly who on the top of my head.
I do have the bios upgrade for larger disks - wonder if that makes a difference. You could try messing around a bit with the bios settings - particularly the hard disk setup menu. There are some options there - lba and other settings.
Did you connect the cf adapter to the primary ide port?

Regarding network - I also had some trouble getting it up and running.
I think what helped was to set up my router for giving the hdr a specific ip address, instead of handing one out through dhcp - let my know if you dont understand what I'm talking about. Actually, if you can tell me what router you are using, I can try to help you out.

[Bruce Graham]

Hey arjepsen;

Thanks for the quick response.

I too have the Larger BIOS Chips BUT I am using this removable bay, not the internal. Maybe that makes a difference?
Not sure I can play around with the settings when it is not the primary drive? There is another gent here that is having the same issue. His removable bay is not functioning. I believe someone in here is looking at it. Not sure who though?

I had thought about putting this in as the primary drive and seeing if that would work, but, I can not install the software via the floppy disks as all my disks are corrupt and I do not have the emulator as of yet. Planning on it, but not there yet. I think I need 3 emulators. One for my HDR, one for my d8b and one for a PC so USB sticks can be formatted and the OS installed. Is that correct?

On the network issue, to make things simple with my HDR, I had it connected directly to a PC through a cross-over cable. No router. Although I tried a router as I though it would be better to have my d8b connected as well. I was able to connect the d8b either through the router or directly with no problem. But not the HDR.

The Router I was going to use was a "TP-Link. Model TL-SG1005D(ca) Ver 7.0. Here is some other info from the box (hope this helps)...
5- 10/100/1000Mbps RJ-45 ports
Auto MDI/MDIX
IEEE 802.3x flow control
802.1p/DSCP Qos

I did have the HDR connected, directly, then for some reason it stopped working and I can't get it re-connected. Windows XP tells me I do not have permission to access the connection.

I also have an error when I boot the HDR. It says "PXE-E61- Media Test Failure, check cable". Not sure if this was there before I tried to setup the connection or not. I wondered if it was pointing to the Ethernet card?

The HDR is currently not plugged into the PC. Hopefully the above means something to you as it doesn't mean anything to me. I'm not a computer guy so... your pointing to the "dhcp" doesn't mean anything to me. Maybe I should take a course on this stuff, except I leave in "the middle of nowhere". It is about 2 hrs to the closest largish city.

Hope some of that helps.

Also, one of the other members and I are going to start a list of the things we need to know so perhaps that will help "stir up" some interest in a "one place to look for answers regarding hardware". If not, as I get answers I will track the info and send it to those who ask for it.

Cheers and thanks again for you help!
Bruce

[Bruce Graham]

Further to my note, I am not sure how to search through your posts?

I know I can search mine.

Thanks
Bruce

[arjepsen]

Regarding the CF card - yeah the usb floppy emulator certainly made life easier for me.
However, if you install the CF adapter, you might not need the whole floppy installation.
Another option could be that I make an image of a fresh HDR installation, then you could just use that image for your CF card. It does require access to a CF card reader though....
By the way, if you get the emulators, you only need two - one for HDR and one for d8b. The usb stick is formatted with a program on the pc. If you do go that route, give me a holler when you get them, and I'll point you to the thread where I made a walkthrough of the whole installation.

I thought about using a second adapter and CF card in place of the removable HD, but never got around to it.
Not sure, but theres a chance things would work better with the adapter connected to the primary ide port.
Unfortunately I'm on holiday now, so I can't check out my bios settings till I get home.
Will try to check it out then.

If you do get the CF solution up and running, and have the reader/writer on your pc, you wouldn't need the network solution - you could just plug the cf card in the reader, and copy over the files on your pc.
If you managed to connect your d8b, but not the HDR using the same cable and computer - yes that could indicate something wrong with the network card in the HDR. Have you tried the d8b's network card in the HDR? That would be a quick way to check whether the problem is actually with the card itself.

You can run through my posts by clicking on my name here to the left of my post. Under "user statistics" there's a "search user's posts" link. It'll shown you an overview of the posts I made. Might take some scrolling to find what you're looking for though

[Bruce Graham]

Hi Anders;

Have good holiday we'll "chat" when you get back.

As a memory jog for me....

When you get back....

I would like to know how to make install disks (HDR & d8b) using a USB stick and no floppy emulator in my PC. Been trying that with no luck thus far. I found software on line. I was able to format but am unable make installation disk. More later.

I will try connecting the CF in the removable try to the primary IDE slot and see what happens.

You are correct that I can remove the CF from the drive bay, shove it in my PC and move the audio files from the P to the CF. Thanks. Also works for backing files up!

Lastly I was under the impression that the ether-net cards are different for the d8b and the HDR, thus not compatible????

Cheers
Bruce

[arjepsen]

I would like to know how to make install disks (HDR & d8b) using a USB stick and no floppy emulator in my PC. Been trying that with no luck thus far. I found software on line. I was able to format but am unable make installation disk. More later.
Bruce

Hey. For that part, read through this:
viewtopic.php?f=2&t=1376&start=10#p12455
and let me know if you have trouble.

Mind you - you still need the emulator to use the usb-stick in the d8b/HDR.

Lastly I was under the impression that the ether-net cards are different for the d8b and the HDR, thus not compatible????
Bruce

ok - I don't remember reading that, but I'm not too deep into the network cards in these machines. Everything basic seems to be the same, so it's worth a shot to see if the HDR would accept that network card.

[Bruce Graham]

Everyday I say thanks for this Forum!

I'll give things a shot. I see I need to purchase Winimage? Is there a specific one I should down load? There are a ton of them!

Aren't you on holiday's?

Thanks Anders
Bruce