EIII hard drive and OS

[NoNotTheBird...]

So I've had my EIII keyboard about 10 years now. It sounded fantastic of course for about 3 months. Then I believe the hard drive stopped working, because it would oocassionally come on if you started it a few times and banged on the side by the floppy a little bit. Maybe its just the floppy that broke. The lcd would light up a pale blue but thats about it? any suggestions? its been a very good looking conversation piece for almost 10 years. I was about to give up on it until I found this forum. Is a hard drive or floppy obtainable and installable by me?

Not new to emu sampleres though, I was the E4 (among other things) programmer for Sonic Reality for some time. For the brief time I used the EIII it was just amazing. I've used  quite the history of analog and digital synths, and for what it sounded like to me in just that time put it in the realm of the classics. Id love to hear it again... I have an e4xt ultra and though probably the best and most comprehensive hardware sampler ever made, its still to far behind the soft samplers to fire up. Even though I spent years staring into the several square inch screen, I still never turn it on.

[dr.c]

Now do this :
Find a SCSI disk, preferably the ones that were in Macs (Quantum)
Don't bother formating, if the disk does not belong to you, don't worry, it won't damage it. Its just to see iof your processor board works !
Disconnect the cables of the original disk without even taking it away from the emu, put few sheets of paper on top of it, put the borrowed disk on top of the sheets and put the cables on the disk you just installed.
Be carefull that the two disks on top of the other don't touch the front panel PCB when you put it back in place. Re-power the machine. If the display comes back normaly just scanning the disks without finding a proper one (wich is normal if the new one is not formated), it means that you processor board works.
Maybe check that the disk is set on the proper SCSI channel.

Step by step, do this first, then after, depending of the result, I will tell you what to do !

[NoNotTheBird...]

Thanks so much for your help. I tried this with an old Quantum Viking that was previously in a SCSI standalone case. Unfortunately I tried it right before your response, so I didnt do the paper thing or change the SCSI ID. But I can tell you it was on SCSI 3. The New drive I used has fairly long metal legs on its casing which did prevent it from touching the drive beneath as it was originally a shockmounted suspended drive. It span right up from the power but I got just the pale blue lit LCD with no text and then after a short time it would whir down and start clicking. When I powered it up in its original case to check it before i tried it on the EIII it span up and stayed spinning. I power cylcled the EIII and got this clicking after a short time. Both the new drive and the old drive did this.

The fact that the new drive did not click and strain before i put it in the EIII makes me hope and think that this is a power supply issue, and I'm praying it's just turn that little screw with the volt meter attached like ive read elsewhere on this forum. Also since the LCD does dim when the drive whirs down It really seems that could be the issue. I wouldn't dare try this though unless properly informed first. Just so you know I had used the Quantum Viking with my E4xt Ultra and it always worked but the last time i turned it on was 5 years ago. Thanks again Dr C, Ill tell you i would have probably gave up on this thing if I didnt find the forum.