Advice on what to do first with a d8b

[spynmaker]

I just found him . His name is John.
What’s the biggest you can go without the chip? Not wanting to go that far yet. Just trying to modernize the system so I don’t have to worry about breakdown (Hopefully lol...)

[Jondav1120]

Hi spynmaker,

I believe the max with the original BIOS was 32GB...

Regards

John

[doktor1360]

Hi spynmaker,

I believe the max with the original BIOS was 32GB...

Regards

John

Yuppers... that's all that's available to either the D8B or HDR... from what I've been able to determine, only the BIOS upgrade for the HDR supports larger drive capacity at runtime, and that's on the primary drive of the 'external' IDE chain only. Regarding the D8B, it'll support 32GB, but it will only format and utilize ~ 4GB. I quickly experimented & worked things out a while back, and actually ended up using only a 4GB CF card in order to arrive at the smallest capacity for the OS 5.1 footprint to install successfully. The installer partitions and formats the boot media to install the subsequent Mackie operating system file(s), and simply doesn't use more than that capacity during runtime... that's clearly Mackie's cap (static, hard-coded limitation) at the time when they developed the software, not any BIOS limitation...

As far as the HDR is concerned, that's a little bit of a different animal and I believe (if memory serves) I've addressed that in a post in the HDR forum. If not, well, then I have something else to do ( ). But I digress...

Typically, this is included for transparency purposes:
[Standard Mgmt Disclaimer] - "Your actual mileage may vary..."

Peace

[Phil.c]

Many years ago, I upgraded the chip which allowed me to use a larger HD.

[spynmaker]

Ok, So 32 GB is the limit on the internal AND external?

Do I use CF cards to upgrade, or is there an SSD that can be used? Or if you can link me to your experience, that would help too!

[Y-my-R]

The internal drive in my HDR is a SATA-SSD with a SATA/IDE adapter and it boots fine from it... however, it fails the recording test and doesn't allow to record to it.

I always record to a spinning drive in the bay in the front when I use it, so I've been to lazy to open it back up and troubleshoot.

But I don't know if that's supposed to work or not. I actually got the drive from a guy on this forum, when I bought a drive bay for the HDR from him and he threw that drive in as a bonus, claiming that it works in the drive bay (it was in there and wired up when I got it). However, that didn't work for me AT ALL, so I don't know if he was telling me something wrong, or if my HDR just didn't like it.

The same guy sold me a burned BIOS chip that supports larger harddrives (that I installed before trying the above). That generally works for me, but somehow the BIOS displays a message on boot, that this is a DEMO of something (I'll have to boot it to see what exactly it said... maybe of the chip-burning software or something).

So, long story short, with my HDR and that weird "DEMO" BIOS I have, I can use large spinning drives in the drive bay without problems, but an SSD with IDE adapter on the inside, can only boot the HDR, but doesn't allow to record to it.

Good enough for me - I always wondered if that SHOULD work, though...

[arjepsen]

I also get the "DEMO" message from the bios chip.
But I suspect that the issues in getting the internal drive to record is an issue with the ide-sata adapter.
I have a CF card on an adapter connected to the internal ide port, and I can record on that no problem.
I did try the same adapter and CF card inside the drive bay, and that would not allow me to record.
However, connecting the CF card adapter directly to the second ide port on the motherboard worked for recording.

However, I think the CF card solution is the easiest.
The reason is: if you record on the drive in the drive bay, you still have to shut down and reboot, if you change drives. But you can easily get a CF adapter to sit where the floppy drive usually is, and then just switch CF cards if necessary. Then backing up the cards / Transfering files would simply just be a matter of getting a card reader interface for you pc...

Anyways, there are many hacks/options on how you get it set up in a way that works best for you - we all have slightly different ways of using this old system

[Jondav1120]

I have an HDR and an MDR, both with the large drive BIOS installed. On boot the HDR displays a message - "2A69KD49 EVALUATION ROM - NOT FOR SALE". The MDR does not display this message.
The HDR is fitted with a BIOS chip that I think came from an Ebay seller, and the MDR is fitted with a genuine Mackie sourced BIOS chip. looking at these two BIOS's in a hex editor reveals a few minor differences between them in the actual code, and also a small difference in release date. The "evaluation ROM" dates from 25/4/2003, and the "genuine" dates from 03/06/2003.

I originally tried to convert my D8B to compact flash and found it would not boot with the original BIOS (Dated 07/09/1999). The only way I could make it work was to change the D8B to the large hard drive BIOS...worked fine with that BIOS.

Regards

John

[spynmaker]

Is there somewhere I can go read about the CF card method? For what I'm doing, I won't need anymore than 32GB.

Does that go for the internal and external drives? You can use CF cards on both? If that's the case, does somebody have a link to the OS this runs and a tutorial how to install?
Maybe I'm asking for too much lol. Sorry if I am lol.

[arjepsen]

The database is your friend
Really, look through it - it's got so much great information.
That does NOT mean you can't ask us anyway though! - we're happy to help.

Try reading through these posts:
http://www.sonido-7.com/d8b/tpis.html#Post19
http://www.sonido-7.com/d8b/tpis.html#Post24

Regards
Anders