Hello to the Forum

[Shogun]

Hi to the EIII Forum.
I have just registered with the site and wanted to officially say hello then get down to the nitty gritty of asking for some help with my newly acquired EIII.
I am UK based and operate a small home studio slowly being filled with iconic 80's synths - everything I couldn't afford at the time.

My EIII has a working Floppy but the original Conner CP340 HD is shot. It can be heard whining and groaning on start up. The unit has an optical drive attached and all works reasonably well booting from the floppy.

I have two Quantum ProDrive ELS drives of about 170 meg and a Quantum Fireball.
They are all tested and working from circa 1992/3. However, when either ProDrive is installed the screen is blank and the system will not boot from floppy. Tried a few different ID numbers 1-4 making no difference. With the Fireball installed and spinning the system booted from floppy (with screen data) and then mounted drives (this looks good) but after completion you cannot format it. The EIII doesn't seem to know it's there. Is there anything else I should be doing? I'd like to sort the internal drive.

I've been reading about the CF adapters and wonder if the "SCSI for Samplers" kits actually work OK?

Thanks in advance for any assistance.

 

[Mr Mode]

Hi Shogun,

Welcome to the forum. Firstly, I don't have an EIII, but instead an EIII XS complete with a CF floppy drive replacement solution from SCSI For Samplers. In summary, the product is excellent. It never crashes, never hangs and was simple to install. I don't want to sound like an ad man for the company, but I've got to say that the after sales care and correspondence is fantastic. I'm not able to determine whether or not the SCSI config on the EIII XS is better or worse than that of the EIII, but if it's a CF solution you require, then SCSI For Samplers is the answer.

Best of luck

Mr Mode

[esynthesist]

My SCSI For Samplers CF Card drive works fine with my EIII Keyboard, but as far as I can remember my EIII is not able to boot from it - it worked as an additional hard drive in my setup only.
If I find time to install my EIII again, I will check it again.
Besides this (and the fact that it doesn't work with the Emax-I), the CF card drive is a very good unit. I'm using it daily, especially with my Emax-II.

[Shogun]

Hi. Thanks for your responses to my initial question.

I would prefer to replace the hard drive if I could trace a unit that is compatible. I assume that if a drive is incompatible - the EIII just doesn't see it? There's nothing more you have to do to get it recognised? There are no more options in the menu.

I know it will run off software on an MO cart once booted from floppy.

If anyone knows how to get a drive recognised after the EIII mounts it - please let me know.

Thanks again everyone for the assistance.

[potscrubber]

Hi Shogun

I believe the blank screen is due to lack of termination on the internal scsi bus, basically crashing the bus as far as the EIII is concerned.

To get your Quantums working, you should find some specifications on their jumpers and termination settings by googling.

If your old Quantum is missing termination resistors, you can also buy an internal ribbon terminator, that goes on the end of a 3 connector ribbon cable, like this:

EIII card ----> HD drive ----> terminator

It's possible that the fireball is just not compatible with the EIII.

Alternatively, see my posts in this thread:

http://eiiiforum.com/index.php?topic=396.0

regards my recent experience getting a scsi4samplers CF drive working.

As you have a working floppy (to load the OS), I would go straight to that solution if I was you.

Remember:
- if ordering from scsi4samplers specify an ACARD 7720U CF drive
- while formatting let the very long verify complete (else it won't boot from it)
- save a blank bank to the newly formatted disk (else it won't boot from it)
- if using a CF card, make sure you have one of the few that are compatible (else it won't boot from it)

good luck

pot.