by E5kUltra » Sat Sep 03, 2011 4:30 pm
Ok, before we get involved with you getting a drive off me there might be a couple of things to try.
The conventional wisdom regarding the Akai S1100 was that only 2x, 4x and Plextor drives were certain to work, but I got
a Teac CD-532S working with the Akai. This is a 32x speed drive, but the Akai was ok with it when the drive was set to
operate in 512 bytes/sector mode rather than 2048 bytes/sector which is the modern convention.
At some point in CDROM development all drives became 2048 bytes/sector unless hard jumpered to 512 bytes/sector,
whereas, previously I believe that drives would accept a command over the SCSI bus to switch between 512 and 2048
depending on what messages were sent by the host. This is where the compatibility issues arise - some drives will not
recognise the command sent on power up to switch block size. This is only my own theory!
What drive are you trying to use with your E-mu? The actual model number of the drive that is, do you have a data sheet
for it that shows all the jumper settings? There could be a jumper for block size that might be worth trying. When trying
out drives I always set the SCSI ID to 0 (no jumpers on), parity check to on (usually jumper on), termination to on if available
(usually jumper on), and then I just check the drive with block size 512 (usually jumper on) or 2048.
The E-mu e5000 Ultra has been able to use every drive I've ever tried on it, including CDR drives.
The old Panasonic drives I have seem pretty decent, I've tested them all as working 100% in the last couple of weeks, but
of course I have no idea how long they would last over the long term. I was surprised at how quiet they were, but I guess
they're running at lower speeds than modern ones, so they're going to be a bit quieter.
If you end up needing a drive, well they cost me about $6 to $7 each (I got a lot of 5) so I will sell one for $5 plus postage.
Last edited by
E5kUltra on Sat Sep 03, 2011 5:25 pm, edited 1 time in total.