Samplers on ACiD

csdecato

Member

The Button Problem & SSD

Hello all... thanks so much for this forum!! I've been having a blast reading posts, and it's great to see folks out there who still love there Emu's!!

I've got an ULTRA 4XT with sticky buttons... seems like I remember reading about folks with the same problem years ago, but haven't found any posts here about it
(figure I'm either missing them, or the solutions are way too obvious!) Did everyone fix their buttons so long ago that there aren't any new posts? Or am I just a goober?

Also, I replaced the standard 3.5GB ATA drive with a 20GB drive that came in my G4 400 that I bought at the same time as I bought the ultra... spring 2000. (amazing it still spins up!) Reading all the great posts regarding upgrades to various alternative drives, I'm wonder what seems to be the best for someone who has no need of a removable, and who is still EOS 4.61??
Is there really a reason to upgrade to 4.7 other than 120GB?

I really just want a copy of my current library on a new drive... So I need both a way to connect to scsi to make the copy, then ata for a permanent internal drive, right?

Many Thanks for any thoughts!!

(^=

override

Member

Re: The Button Problem & SSD

With OS 4.7 you can use the backup function in the disk menu and copy the data from the scsi drive to the ide drive.

override

Member

Re: The Button Problem & SSD

You can only read scsi drives in OS 4.6.. so maybe your better off upgrading to a scsi2sd and putting a 16bg sd card in it.

Last edited by override (2019-01-27 17:01:58)

csdecato

Member

Re: The Button Problem & SSD

Thanks for the reply Override!

I'm thinking I have a solution for the HD... I've revived an old Amiga 3000, and was able to copy several old scsi drives to SD card via a SCSI2SD gizmo... works great! and now the machine boots and runs from the SD card. I'm gonna invest in another SCSISD board, and at least run it externally and copy my 20gb drive in the Ultra, and then hopefully install it internally. Pretty sure thats possible... there is a question about switching around the power though right?? I've read about folks frying brand new drives... Would that effect the SCSI2SD also? I may just install it in an external box and run from there and save the hassle... lol

I'm still not finding any info about sticky buttons anywhere! and I don't know if it's because it's so simple to fix that no one talks about it, or what!?

haha... I'm too old to be a noob!

Anyways! Thanks for your thoughts!

philtipping

Administrator

Re: The Button Problem & SSD

Hi csdecato, the best way to fix sticky buttons is to replace them, but this does involve a fair bit of dismantling to get at the board, and then soldering in new ones... and you'll still need to find a source for the buttons. I'm sure someone posted part nos. but this was a long time ago. There may be some info in this SamplersOnAcid forum so try a search here. If not, try browsing the legacy forum section - click the EmusOnAcid button near the top of the screen next to the Index button. The 'search' option for the legacy section won't work but you can use Google (or any other web search engine) instead if you include the phrase 'legacy-emus-on-acid' in your search words.  I replaced mine many years ago but bought extra buttons for spares as they seemed to be hard to find back then. Not sure if spray-on switch cleaner works but maybe worth a try. Good luck.
Update: just found this post: http://samplersonacid.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=79

csdecato

Member

Re: The Button Problem & SSD

Thank for the replies!! I'm amazed that there is still folks out there that love these old boxes! So great to see!

Here's a quick update... Thanks Philtipping for the link!! I'll be ordering the switches, and will report back on my efforts replacing! Here's the link in case anyone is having similar trouble...
https://www.digikey.com/products/en?ven … s=sw405-nd

Syntaur also has them here... https://syntaur.com/Items.php?Item=4495 They also make some fun videos of their work refurbing old analog synths... fun stuff!

I've been working for the past day or so with a SCSI2SD gizmo... https://store.inertialcomputing.com/pro … -molex.htm
It worked amazingly in my old A3000, and is super easy to install in the EMU. One thing that I've found though, is that although I have just barely 13 Gbs on my old 20 Gb internal HD... It's somehow not fitting onto the 16Gb SD card (that formats to about 14.5Gbs) I'm boggled... It will copy about 10 Gbs and then hangs... same place 3 times.

Even after a reboot... it sees all the folders it copied before hanging, and will load banks from the SD, and SD shows 70% full or so. I guess I'm going to try getting a bigger SD card, or actually trash some duplicate banks (I know there are a few) but I'm still wondering... is it possible that there is a sector size or other format difference ?? seems odd!

Thanks for any thoughts!

philtipping

Administrator

Re: The Button Problem & SSD

There is a well-known size anomaly issue if your sd-card is formatted as EMU/EOS. Brief description here http://www.philizound.co.uk/freebies/em … discs.html  - scroll down to the 'E-MU/EOS vs FAT' section near the bottom, or search the legacy forum for 'cluster size', e.g. http://samplersonacid.com/legacy-emus-o … 7.php.html
Bottom line is it's better to format large discs/sd-cards as FAT, not EMU/EOS.
Good luck with the button replacements.

override

Member

Re: The Button Problem & SSD

there is a question about switching around the power though right?? I've read about folks frying brand new drives... Would that effect the SCSI2SD

the molex connector that emu uses to power the floppy and hd have the positive and negative leads inverted.. so if you use a standard molex that you buy off ebay, for example, you can damage the scsi2sd.

csdecato

Member

Re: The Button Problem & SSD

Ahh Thanks for that nugget on the Emu formatting anomaly! I guess I never had to deal with it! and I was lucky that I never had an issue with the power leads being inverted! In the 1st couple years of using my Ultra, I swapped the 3.5 Gb drive out for the 20 that came with my G4 400, and used an ancient! 9 Gb external Avid drive as a back up. It all worked perfectly, and I was oblivious!

As it turned out, after it would hang attempting to copy my entire drive over to the SD, I was able to manually copy the last couple folders over without much hassle, other than babysitting, bank by bank copying. Only took me a couple hours lol!

What is strange is that getting info on the folder it was hanging on, shows 0 mbs on the SD... Even more strange is that after going through the banks and adding up sizes, even the 20 Gb drive shows the folder size incorrectly! 370 Mb when it is actually 1500 Mb or so... I've tested a few times, and all banks in that folder load and save without issue... odd though! Maybe at some point I'll figure it out, but as long as it works! ignorance is bliss!

One other thing to mention... the SCSI2SD adapter in my case, was able to be powered by the SCSI bus, so no need to worry about inverted leads! Sweet!

I made a terrible video of the process... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WaPPpNp2lKI

Sorry, It's pretty dark in my studio, and I was having a few beers while doing it!! and blathered on like a tool!

Thanks so much for the responses! I'll post an update when I get around to sorting the buttons! Honestly, just using them as much as I have over the last few days seems to be helping them out!!

(^=

Last edited by csdecato (2019-01-27 18:27:10)

override

Member

Re: The Button Problem & SSD

and I was lucky that I never had an issue with the power leads being inverted! In the 1st couple years of using my Ultra, I swapped the 3.5 Gb drive out for the 20 that came with my G4 400, and used an ancient! 9 Gb external Avid drive as a back up. It all worked perfectly, and I was oblivious! (^=

It sounds like you were using the molex connector (the power connector that goes from the emu motherboard to power the drive) that came with the emu so there it's wired the right way already

As it turned out, after it would hang attempting to copy my entire drive over to the SD, I was able to manually copy the last couple folders over without much hassle, other than babysitting, bank by bank copying. Only took me a couple hours lol! (^=

Instead of selecting "all" when backing up change this to "range" which lets you back up folder by folder (instead of trying to copy the whole drive). it is a bit faster than loading each bank manually!
Your problem with backup all not working is due to an issue with the sector size for the sd card.. most sd cards use 1024 sector sizes whereas scsi 1 devices use smaller sectors (512 or less). this isn't really a problem when emulating small hd sizes but when you emulate a large drive (e.g., 20gb) and write to it it the data will take up more capacity that it actually should. for example, if you back up a 16mb bank and then check the disk info in the emu it will say that ~32mb are actually being used (or something like this..) so even though you have the two drives are around 20gb the capacity of the scsi2sd when configured a large drive is less because when it starts to get filled it cannot help but use larger sectors per byte of data
this is what philtipping was referencing earlier.

the scs2sd is not designed to emulate large hd sizes so you should keep the size of the scsi2sd at 4gb max when using it with the emu. download the scsi2sd utility from their website and you can configure the scsi2sd to emulate 4x 4gb scsi devices (you will need to set different scsi id's for them and make sure "sd card start sector" is set to auto for device). You will have to reformat and recopy your files but again if you use the range backup function it will be much faster. This should fix the issue where the emulated device is reporting incorrect hd stats

just as an fyi - if you want to have a truly massive hard drive in your emu you would need to put it on the ide buss. a ssd, ide, or pata drive can be put on the ide bus with a capacity of ~160gb.

Last edited by override (2019-01-28 00:40:25)

csdecato

Member

Re: The Button Problem & SSD

Thanks for that great info Override! I'm familiar with the scsi2sd utility and creating multiple "drives" with one sd card from my work with it on my A3000... I'll give that a shot, and the "range" copy also!! Might be a great way for me to reorganize my samples also, as they are kinda chucked in folders willy nilly!

I'm think I'm ok with my small drives... to move up to big drives you need to upgrade the eos to 4.7 correct? I'm still running 4.61 Not sure if I'd be all that motivated to make the jump. 

Maybe!!

Thanks again!!

(^=

philtipping

Administrator

Re: The Button Problem & SSD

If you're on a PC, or have some way of running batch files on a Mac, this utility may help to organise your samples & folders