Mackie HDR 24/96 Hard drive

[Mjrock62]

I want to convert to a new hard drive on my mackie HDR 24/94
The old hard drive is failing and i'm having nothing but problems keeping it booted.
Does anyone know where I can
Find out or figure out how to do this, i don't wanna lose this hard drive recorder.

[Y-my-R]

The floppy disk imagines to install the HDR’s operating system to a replacement hard drive can be found here:

https://www.sonido-7.com/d8b/index.html#Post8

There’s a few things to be aware of and consider when replacing that hard drive:

1. The HDR/MDR recorders use “IDE” harddrives - you won’t be able to find a “new” IDE harddrive anymore. They don’t make them anymore. If you want to stick with a “spinning” drive, you’d have to find a used IDE drive, that has a small enough capacity for the HDR/MDR to still recognize it. Which brings me to the next point:

2. There is a “large harddrive BIOS” upgrade available, where you’d physically replace the BIOS chip on the mainboard inside the HDR/MDR to allow it to recognize larger harddrives… do you have that installed, by any chance? But even WITH that “large drive” BIOS installed, I think it only recognizes harddrives up to 128 GB or so. So, you still can’t just install “any” IDE hard drive. So, you’ll first have to figure out if you can install “large” harddrives in your HDR already, or if it still needs that new BIOS chip to make that possible.

3. I would NOT recommend to buy a used spinning IDE harddrive to bring your HDR back. That’d be just a countdown until that other used drive dies… they’re all 20+ years old now. Because of that, it would be a better idea to convert the HDR/MDR to internally use an IDE-to-SATA adapter, and then run the Operating System on the HDR off of a SATA drive. The nice side effect of this is, that the HDR will get quieter. HOWEVER, it can be kind of tricky to find a IDE-to-SATA adapter that actually works for this purpose in the HDR.
I got the wrong recommendation from someone on this forum when I was looking to convert my own HDR and bought a few wrong such adapters that didn’t let the HDR record to that SSD drive. The adapters didn’t cost much, but I wasted SO MANY HOURS on testing and troubleshooting that “supposedly working” adapter, I was losing my mind!
Anyway… eventually that person who made the wrong recommendation checked their records and shared a link for an IDE-to-SATA adapter that actually works in the HDR. I’ll find the link and will share it here, shortly.

4. In theory, you could also install a Compact Flash/CF card as the operating system drive in the HDR/MDR… but these won’t pass the recording test - they’re too slow. But it might still make sense to use an externally accessible CF card (e.g. installed to the floppy drive slot, or into a pci-card slot-blind) to only run the Operating System, but then NEVER to record to the internal drive, but only to a drive in the caddy… and could then run an SSD drive with a IDE-to-SATA adapter inside of the stock-caddy. But then you’d have to have a IDE-to-SATA adapter in every caddy you use with your HDR… or you’d have to replace the harddrives inside the caddy every time you want to switch projects… which would be too much of a hassle, IMO.

5. You could go a step further, and replace the stock IDE caddy, with a new SATA caddy, and then have the IDE-to-SATA adapter live inside the HDR and connect to the caddy system… so, any SSD-drive caddy you’d put into the HDR, would then get converted to the IDE format the HDR needs internally. The same person who recommended the SATA-to-IDE adapter to me, also recommended a new caddy type to me, that I bought. That caddy system works pretty well... I'll have to check on the make/model of that, as well.

...and I’ll have to double-check how I have it all set up… I don’t really use my HDR much… but if I recall correctly, I think I have a CF card running the OS, but am not sure at this point. I'm sure that I have a newer type SSD-caddy system installed, with the IDE-to-SATA converted living inside the HDR (not inside the caddy), though.

6. I do NOT think that there’s a disk image ready to download for the HDR/MDR on this page (like the similar Macrium Reflect disk image for the D8B operating system), so you’ll have to install this from the floppy disks.
I don’t recall off-hand, if the HDR installation floppy disks by default have the “format:on” flag set or not. The thing is, any new CF card or SSD drive (or even used spinning drive you might add/replace in the HDR) will need to be formatted from the HDR itself! Formatting from Windows or Mac etc. will NOT work, since the HDR/MDR (and D8B) write a special book sector to the harddrive, that Windows/Mac can’t write in the correct way.
So, essentially, after installing a new CF/SSD/HD to your HDR, and booting it from the first installation floppy disk, there should be a prompt if you want to format the harddisk (and you HAVE TO if it’s a new drive). So, confirm if that prompt comes up… but if it does NOT come up, you could as well abort the installation attempt right then. You NEED to format a new drive or it won’t work.

If that happens, you’d need to take the first HDR installation floppy to a Windows or Mac computer with a floppy drive, and then modify an .ini file (I think it was setup.ini - but I’ll have to double-check), adding the line “format:on” (no spaces). Then you should get the format prompt when booting from the first HDR installation floppy, should be able to format with the correct special boot sector, and follow the prompts to complete the installation via the 3 floppy disks.

Overall, IMO, the CF+SSD conversion I did on my HDR was a major PITA, and I’m not sure if I’d do this again, had I known that I won’t need it as much as I used to. But if you’re regularly using it, then it could extend the life of your HDR significantly and keep it useful for some time to come

Anyway, before I dive any deeper into this, and look up the missing details above… could you share if you have the large BIOS upgrade, and which route you’d like to go with your HDR upgrade (e.g. internal CF or SSD… replace caddy with a new one or keep the old one… or not use it at all, etc.), so I can focus on looking up the info specific to that route, rather than digging up any possibly bit of info that might be useful (which would take me a lot of time… so, not too motivated to do more than necessary, haha).

Alright - let me/us know how you want to proceed, then I’ll look up the info you’ll need next

Also... technically this post should have happened over on the HDR/MDR forum, rather than the D8B forum... but I don't think anybody here really cares, hahaha

[Phil.c]

Many many years ago I added the BIOS upgrade chip, I think to my D8B CPU, is there a way of finding if the upgrade was added in the BIOS?

[Y-my-R]

...as it turned out, my own HDR lost its BIOS settings AGAIN (I'm pretty sure I put a fresh battery in there less than 2 years ago... strange), and while I can get into the BIOS, it then doesn't let me "navigate" to the different areas in there, to re-do the settings. Sigh...

So, I'll have to pull the HDR from the rack and open the lid again, to see what the heck is going on, and to put yet another fresh battery in there. Since I don't regularly use the HDR (or not at all, lately, really), I'm not sure how soon I'll try to investigate.

So, for troubleshooting Mjrock62's issue, I'll have to mostly do that from memory... but have no intention to invest any more effort into this thread, if Mr. J-Rock doesn't follow up on this, here. Probably expected a simple quick-fix answer, and that's definitely NOT what the HDR needs, to bring it into this century.

Phil, as for how to tell which BIOS you have... first question would be, how large is your harddrive, haha
You probably had a reason to install the large BIOS upgrade into the D8B, meaning that you likely didn't have a small enough drive available, so you had to go that route... not sure what the "small drive" limit for the D8B is... I think 32GB. So, I'd think if the drive in your D8B is any larger than 40GB, you MOST LIKELY have the large HD BIOS.

Also, I have a DM from you where I shared Gary Stone's contact info with you, after I shared that I bought a BIOS upgrade from him. If you got your upgrade from Gary, then you'd have the same BIOS image as what I got... and that one comes with an "EVALUATION ROM - NOT FOR SALE" message on startup, as shown in the attached pic.
I'm not sure if ALL the "large drive BIOS" chips out in the wild will have that message, or if that's just because of the way Gary burned those chips or the tools he used.

HDRLargeBIOS.jpg (Array KiB) Viewed 89 times

...and while I'm at it, here's the IDE-to-SSD adapter that worked for me in the HDR:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002SZDOM6/

I haven't come across the order info for the SSD drive caddy I'm using, yet. I'll look for it if the OP responds again... but won't just to entertain myself, haha

[Phil.c]

Yes, I have the BIOS upgrade and as you say, it was installed because the 32gb HD's were becoming scarce, as I remember it will except from memory around 80gb HD.