I have just picked up a cheap Akai S6000 to play around with and to fill 4U in my rack!!!!
The internal SCSI hard-drive is not behaving. There is a good sized library on board so I would like to access it or at least get it onto something a bit more bullet-proof as the SCSI drive is not good.
Has anyone had similar problems? The drive powers up OK but doesn't spin up. I've opened up the S6000 and uninstalled and re-installed the drive. It worked for a short while but has now stopped working again.
I'm prepared to spend a bit of time trying to sort but ultimately, if it's going to prove to be a PITA, I'm going to sell the sampler for parts as I'll probably turn a few quid by selling the USB/EFX/64 Voice board etc...... separately.
I would like to keep hold of it though but need some internal storage options if the SCSI drive is foobard!!!
Other than th drive does it work ok or not boot? If the latter the drive may be interrupting the boot; I had the same issue with my mpc4000. Remove the drive totally and check….
The only suggestion I could give would be to take the HDD out and connect it to a computer somehow, the format is standard pc FAT 32? so any computer can read it with an appropriate SCSI card and see if it works out of the S6000.
You wouldn't need a fancy computer to do it just something with a free PCI slot or an old laptop and a PCMCIA SCSI card.
DGL. wrote: ↑Sun Oct 02, 2022 5:17 pm
The only suggestion I could give would be to take the HDD out and connect it to a computer somehow, the format is standard pc FAT 32? so any computer can read it with an appropriate SCSI card and see if it works out of the S6000.
You wouldn't need a fancy computer to do it just something with a free PCI slot or an old laptop and a PCMCIA SCSI card.
I don't have a PC in the house!!! I'll see if I can find someone at work to help out.
If you get access to a pc but don’t have a scsi card I still have one, the adapter 2490 (I might have the name wrong) but it is a sort of standard scsi card you can have it if you want
Unless it changed with the later models Akai used their own propriety format for hard drives. Certainly the disks I used with my Akai S2000 were unreadable by anything else.
BigRedX wrote: ↑Mon Oct 03, 2022 11:21 am
Unless it changed with the later models Akai used their own propriety format for hard drives. Certainly the disks I used with my Akai S2000 were unreadable by anything else.
If that's the case, the best place for it is the skip. {cough} in my humble opinion {cough}
BigRedX wrote: ↑Mon Oct 03, 2022 11:21 am
Unless it changed with the later models Akai used their own propriety format for hard drives. Certainly the disks I used with my Akai S2000 were unreadable by anything else.
Interesting. Never seen a 2000 with a hard drive - didn't even think they came with SCSI.
PCM WAV was adopted for the 5000/6000 so there shouldn't be any issue migrating the data. There is software that will convert .snd to .wav though...
- get hold of another scsi drive and see if it works in the AKAI (Ebay has scsi drives starting at around a tenner - check the pincount to avoid cable adapter hassles!)
- as mentioned above, get an adaptec scsi card and test the "faulty" drive on someone's pc. I use WG Data Lifeguard to test all my SCSI etc. drives on an 18 year old PC. It's easy peasy, quick, and free. https://support.wdc.com/downloads.aspx?p=3&&lang=en
Another reason to connect the drive to a PC is that the power distribution board in the AKAI might be faulty, so if the drive powers up via the PC...(I've replaced 2 faulty PD boards in my AKAI multitrack).
Finally, if the drive is failing but you can get it talking to a PC, you should be able to backup all the samples on it, proprietary or not, and then copy them back onto your new drive. I've done this dozens of times with AKAI project files that contain .cue, .mix, and numerous other proprietary AKAI project files.
ken long wrote: ↑Mon Oct 03, 2022 12:29 pmInteresting. Never seen a 2000 with a hard drive - didn't even think they came with SCSI.
PCM WAV was adopted for the 5000/6000 so there shouldn't be any issue migrating the data. There is software that will convert .snd to .wav though...
It's a long time since I had the S2000, but IIRC the SCSI interface was built-in, but required an external hard drive. I used mine with an external 3.5" MO drive.
It was also possible to use the SCSI interface to connect to a computer and transfer samples and edit programs using Akai's MESA software.
FrankF wrote: ↑Mon Oct 03, 2022 12:47 pm
Another reason to connect the drive to a PC is that the power distribution board in the AKAI might be faulty, so if the drive powers up via the PC...(I've replaced 2 faulty PD boards in my AKAI multitrack).
The power light on the drive lights up which would suggest there is power getting through. The disc just doesn't spin up.
I ‘imported’ all my S1000 library into Logic’s EXS sampler and then sold it.
Good to see that you’re using the hardware, but for me the more I can do ‘in the box’ the better.
I still have old synthesizers and samplers but I only use them when revisiting old songs.
MOF wrote: ↑Mon Oct 03, 2022 2:35 pm
I ‘imported’ all my S1000 library into Logic’s EXS sampler and then sold it.
Good to see that you’re using the hardware, but for me the more I can do ‘in the box’ the better.
I still have old synthesizers and samplers but I only use them when revisiting old songs.
I used to have the Akai Z8, a great piece of kit I thought, but to load the best piano instrument took several minutes. I went from Akai z8 to Gigasampler, same quality of instrument took 7 seconds, the Z8's days were numbered, and when I went to 64 bit computing the ak.sys software wouldn't work. There were that said 'use a virtual box' so I could continue to wortk in the Win7/32 environment, but nah, Gigasampler became obsolete, Kontakt came along and that was that, yet another piece of hardware on eBay/SOS
Prior to the Z8 I had the Yamaha A5000, sounded fantastic, but for all practical purposes, even though it too had a built in HDD, it was painfully slow, why couldn't Yamaha had designed the A series with an OS that allowed sample loading speeds equivalent to that of a PC
MOF wrote: ↑Mon Oct 03, 2022 2:35 pm
I ‘imported’ all my S1000 library into Logic’s EXS sampler and then sold it.
Good to see that you’re using the hardware, but for me the more I can do ‘in the box’ the better.
That's pretty much what I did too. And was just in time, because the Akai ceased to function about 6 months after I made the transfer.
OneWorld wrote: ↑Mon Oct 03, 2022 4:00 pmI used to have the Akai Z8, a great piece of kit I thought, but to load the best piano instrument took several minutes.
Prior to the Z8 I had the Yamaha A5000, sounded fantastic, but for all practical purposes, even though it too had a built in HDD, it was painfully slow, why couldn't Yamaha had designed the A series with an OS that allowed sample loading speeds equivalent to that of a PC
Even with Flash RAM installed the S2000 took several minutes to boot as it "loaded" all the on-board samples. Only slightly better than having to load them from a hard drive.
FrankF wrote: ↑Mon Oct 03, 2022 2:51 pm
Some drives have a jumper setting called "Enable auto spin" - it needs to be shorted with a jumper pin, assuming your drive has this option.
What does it say in the AKAI's "DISK INFO" menu - does it show any disk at all?
I’m assuming everything is setup correctly as it was working only yesterday. I had to remove the drive and refit it though. When the S6000 boots, it shows the disc drive in the screen and should show the HDD icon too. However, it doesn’t anymore. The HDD used to be really loud when booting. Now it doesn’t make any noise. It doesn’t even try spinning up at all any more.
I’ve reseated all the data cables and power cables on the motherboard and powerboard and it doesn’t seem to make any difference.
Guido3 wrote: ↑Mon Oct 03, 2022 5:21 pm
I’m assuming everything is setup correctly as it was working only yesterday. I had to remove the drive and refit it though.
Now it doesn’t make any noise. It doesn’t even try spinning up at all any more.
I’ve reseated all the data cables and power cables on the motherboard and powerboard and it doesn’t seem to make any difference.
Assuming nothing (!?) changed when you refitted the drive then it does seem like you have a fault.
It could be that the S6000 isn't supplying enough power for the drive to spin up but I think it's more likely the drive is dead.
Lots of useful ideas to try in this thread, but I also remember that some drives in the 90s used to get 'stuck' when left idle for a bit - a gentle tap could bring them back to life long enough to copy the data.
I know it sounds a bit weird but at some point you've nothing to lose so might be worth a try (google it - I haven't made it up - and it was a tip that was shared to me by an SGI/Cray engineer !)
Guido3 wrote: ↑Mon Oct 03, 2022 5:21 pm
I’m assuming everything is setup correctly as it was working only yesterday. I had to remove the drive and refit it though.
Now it doesn’t make any noise. It doesn’t even try spinning up at all any more.
I’ve reseated all the data cables and power cables on the motherboard and powerboard and it doesn’t seem to make any difference.
Assuming nothing (!?) changed when you refitted the drive then it does seem like you have a fault.
It could be that the S6000 isn't supplying enough power for the drive to spin up but I think it's more likely the drive is dead.
Lots of useful ideas to try in this thread, but I also remember that some drives in the 90s used to get 'stuck' when left idle for a bit - a gentle tap could bring them back to life long enough to copy the data.
I know it sounds a bit weird but at some point you've nothing to lose so might be worth a try (google it - I haven't made it up - and it was a tip that was shared to me by an SGI/Cray engineer !)
Yep, it isn't such an unlikely fix. I also seem to remember way back when, you would be advised to open up a HDD to free up stuck read/write arms, though that fault would usually be made apparent when you heard the drive clicking. I rescued at least one drive in this manner. I soon got rid of it though once I had copied the files to another drive.
Whatever happens I feel the OP simply has to get the drive connected up to a computer
OneWorld wrote: ↑Mon Oct 03, 2022 6:50 pm
Whatever happens I feel the OP simply has to get the drive connected up to a computer
agreed - that would make sense.
depending on how valuable those samples are you could also try buying a similar drive on ebay and swap over the controller. Data recovery companies can also pull data on catastrophically failed drives but I suspect the £££££ they will charge will not be worth it !
I believe the drive should be supplied with 5v and 12v feeds from the power connector. If you have a multimeter, you could check that both voltages are present. The black cables should be 0v. If just one voltage is present, then it might look like the drive has powered up, but both are probably needed for the drive to work properly. Might as well eliminate that before assuming the drive is faulty.
If memory serves me right, SCSI drives require a host command to spin up. This was so that drive arrays could have drive startup staggered to avoid high transient current drain at power up. So it could be an issue with the sampler itself.
There is a project out there that turns a raspberry pi into a SCSI device, and a SCSI to SD product as well, so some interesting options for these old samplers perhaps
