emusonacid!

I recently sourced a few of these long discontinued IcyDock MB-448AR-B units and have just added a removable hard drive bay to my Ultra and it works perfectly!

Link to IcyDock MB-448AR product info. http://www.icydock.com/product/mb448ar.html

IcyDock MB-448AR-B



The bay has a standard IDE connections to the E-mu and a floppy drive style power connector.



Here it is fitted



Here is a YouTube video of the bay in action
Link. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nh34WLxu6Y0

How I did the mod

The floppy drive was removed along with its cables.
After removing the floppy I added a drive jumper across the E-mus floppy board, to fool the Emu into believing the floppy is still present.
The existing IDE ribbon was unplugged from my hard drive and easily reached the bay.
The 2.5 IDE hard drive was slotted into the removable caddy.
and the power adapter was taken care of via one of these from eBay.

15cm Molex Internal Power Y Splitter Cable IDE to Floppy
£1.69 Free P&P
eBay link. http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/220964380555?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1497.l2649


Features and benefits

Now i can install/remove the drive in seconds.
Backup to a laptop.
Reorder contents.
Rename files.
Catalog the drive and printout preset lists.
Add .wav and .aiff samples straight into folders and load them back into the E-mu.

Delighted

Good job - sure beats zips for transfering stuff! Nice track in the vid btw.

Another satisfied IcyDock user - thanks to Jahfunk for the tip-off.
Options for connecting to a PC are:

a. use a 2nd dock mounted in the PC (my setup) - great for desktops but no good for laptops.
b. use a 2nd dock externally and connect with a 3.5" IDE-to-USB cable plus 5v power supply (3.5" IDE doesn't handle power) - bit of a lash-up as everything's exposed, but definitely workable.
c. dismantle the caddy and connect the bare drive via a 2.5" IDE-to-USB cable - fiddly.

Note as these are discontinued be careful with alternatives. One type of removable bay is currently advertised for either IDE or SATA, but this refers to the hard disc connection inside the caddy and not the outer docking bay connection; both types use SATA for this so won't work inside an EMU... so from experience, please read the small print carefully
Phil.

I have bought one of these to mount the second bay

ABS Project Box with Retaining Rails 197x113x63mm
£6.48 & p&p £1.20
eBay Link. http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/290777943816?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1497.l2649



This will allow room to house the bay, power supply, IDE to USB converter
It has arrived and I have checked that it is suitable. Of coarse it will require a bit of drilling and cutting, but it will give me a self contained external drive bay with USB out. The extra effort beats having to mount it inside a tower or putting up with a pile of spaghetti that could suffer from loose connection issues in the future.
Then I will be free to use it with any pc or laptop.

Power supply can be found £3.26 incl. P&P here
eBay link. http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/130517743906?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1497.l2649



IDE to USB adapter £1.98 incl. P&P here
eBay link. http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/USB-2-0-to-IDE-SATA-2-5-3-5-Hard-Drive-Converter-Cable-/170615902288?pt=UK_Computing_Drive_Cables_Adapters&hash=item27b9801050



And you also need one of these
15cm Molex Internal Power Y Splitter Cable IDE to Floppy £1.69 incl. P&P
eBay link. http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/15cm-Molex-Internal-Power-Y-Splitter-Cable-IDE-to-Floppy-/220964380555?pt=UK_Computing_Drive_Cables_Adapters&hash=item337280df8b



All these parts have been tested and work when connecting an external Icydock 2.5 IDE bay to a computer via USB.

I will post a photo of the external bay once it is complete.

EDIT

I also used one of these

New ATA33 40 Pin to 40 Pin 3.5" male to female Desktop IDE Hard Drive Cable £3.99 incl. P&P



Ebay Link http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/New-ATA33-40-Pin-to-40-Pin-3-5-male-to-female-Desktop-IDE-Hard-Drive-Cable-/140777622058?pt=UK_Computing_Drive_Cables_Adapters&hash=item20c7000a2a

So my shopping list came to about £20 for all the bits (excluding the bays), if however you are mounting inside a tower you might find all the cables already inside the computer, if so just get the power cable for the sampler.

If you're ordering all the parts don't forget you will need 2 of these molex to floppy cables! One for the E-MU and one for the external enclosure.

What did it cost you in total Jah? Is it cost effective compared to CF mods? I have a CF mod but thinking about a second EMU.. thats over 200 GB of loaded samples in total!

Very cost effective compared to CF mods.
I got 2 from an eBay seller for a really good price, he has since run out and unable to source any more.

After some head scratching, drilling and cutting, here are some photos of the second Icydock bay in an external enclosure with USB out, now ready to connect the E-MU hard drive caddy to any computer.

Here is a male to female IDE cable fitted alongside the molex to floppy cable.
I have used an IDE cable as the converter wouldn't fit behind the bay, this is because I didn't take into account the extra travel of the bay when pushing to release the caddy. The inside of the case was about 10-15mm too narrow.
Note the bay underneath wedged with some small wood blocks in the back corners, this locks it in place really well.



Here it is with the IDE to USB converter attached



Here with the power connected
I ended up with an external PSU as it was a bit of a tight fit when inside the casing.



The completed external bay.

Fancy doing this mod on the cheap?

Just letting you E-MU heads know that the eBay seller I bought my bays from has more in stock.

They are only available in beige, but I think that would look OK in the E-MU, but the best news is they only cost £10.95 delivered

These IDE drive bays are long discontinued and extremely hard to find, so if you're interested don't hang about.... WIGIG!
I'm just about to buy a spare one.

NEW! IcyDock MB-448AR 2.5" IDE Hard Drive Caddy Beige



Link http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/NEW-IcyDock-MB-448AR-2-5-IDE-Hard-Drive-Caddy-Beige-/190796010156?pt=UK_Collectables_HardDriveEnclosures_RL&hash=item2c6c5412ac&_uhb=1

You could be up and running with all the required cables, parts and 2 bays for between £25 and £40 depending on wether you want to mount the second bay into a PC tower or an external enclosure.

This is a seriously good price, it works out less than the price of a second hand SCSI Zip drive.

Thanks for the heads up on these Jahfunk!What size and type of hard drive did you use in the enclosure? Also do you know if they might work in other samplers?

Nothing special, I used a standard western digital 80GB 2.5 IDE hard drive(model WD800BEVE)The same as the ones you get in a laptop.
Just make sure it's IDE not SATA.

This mod will work on any E-MU Ultra running EOS 4.7.
Can't say if these would work in any other samplers.
Depends if they have IDE.
I know the akai samplers I've used have the OS booted from floppy, this might present a problem as the floppy has to be removed for this mod.

Yep - I'm gonna go for this too. Thanks for the detailed in effort in explaining all the bits and bobs (and the Vid); I had a rat around my leads box and found I had a couple of bits already to get this done rudimentally to start off with.

Oh... and thumbs up to the dirty techno track also

So I got my bits except for a Molex female to FDD power conenctor. Is there any reason the exisitng floppy power can't power the HDD? The voltage is the same as seems the polarity - it's just got a ground leg missing and maybe the current draw is different and it won't power the HDD?

However, am I right in thinking i'll need the female to FDD to format the HDD anyway?

Any answers are appreciated.

Cheers,

Paul.

To avoid any unforeseen problems I just wired it as close to E-mus original design as possible.
For the sake of an extra pound or so I didn't want to take any chances, so I went the tried and trusted way.

which jumper did you do so that the emu does not bother to keep seeking for the floppy

also that splitter cable cant be plugged into the hd connector on the motherboard as the 12v and 5v cables are reversed

you need to swap red and yellow cables around you need a small screw driver to do it theirs a small peice of metal that hooks the plastic so the cable does not come out

you need to gently push this metal hook and gently pull the cable out of the holder

then you need to do this to the other cables

on the mother board by the hd power connector it clearly has the voltages marked

red goes to 5v yellow goes to 12v

the ground black cables stay as they are

Re jumper pins
When the front face of the emu is pointing towards you look for the last 2 pins on the far end of the Emus main board floppy connector (the pins are in two rows so its the last one on each row you need to connect)

Re molex to floppy cable
I already had a HD connected with reverse wires, so this cable was just used to extend and adapt the existing cable.
I never thought to mention the facts about the wire reverse thing to users fitting an IDE drive for the first time.
Thanks for highlighting this important detail.