Greetings, i have recently bought a Akai S3000XL and a Iomega 250mb parallel port zip drive. The problem occurs when i switch on the akai with the zip drive connected, akai says "waiting for hard disk ready..." and freezes, but if i boot from floppy, akai also freezes if i try to access the zip from the save pages.I have checked akai and zip manuals but to no avail so any help or advice would be well recieved. Cheers, Olivaffair.

well i can't be sure but the mention of "parallel port" sounds awfully suspicious... I have not seen anything with a parallel port for at least 5 years. I thought that type of termination had become extinct. Is parallel the only option for connecting the zip and Akai? Sometimes they provide SCSI too and if you have the option... use the SCSI ports.

Oh, here is another possibilty. When I had an EMU ESI2000... you had to install the emu system software on the ZIP for it to read it... otherwise it would freeze. The manual didn't say anything about that either an I learned it from another user. So, maybe you need to format and install system on zip for it work correctly. If all else fails, contact AKAI or search their site.

Thanks for the help, just to say the sampler is connected to the zip via scsi, parallel port is just the type of zip drive. I'm pretty sure its the right type to use with akai samplers as i know someone else that has the same set-up but they have never experienced problems like this, anyway i shall try installing the system software and see what happens. Thanks again, Olivaffair

when using scsi always check correct termination.

read again...
u cant use a parallel port drive with a scsi connection just because the plugs fit!
got the same akai and a scsi zipdrive and it worx fine!

And no conflicting SCSI I/Ds.

This "parallel" zip drive is probably the one that started shipping after the first generation of Parallel OR SCSI zips.

That more recnt one is able to autodetect the bus and switch accordingly to SCSI or Parallel mode.

It is probably this device we are talking about.

HI,
sorry to say that but i had the same problem with my S3000. and you must change the SCSI Card in your sampler ! because to connect an parallel port on an SCSI port cause damages in your sampler!( i received the same message: "waiting for hard disk ready")Your scsi port is defect.
You will buy an Iomega Zip SCSI port for the next times! ;-)

bye.
jon

Hello, does anyone know what sort of SCSI card to get to replace one in a Akai s3000 xl, and where to get one??

Hi... I too have the same problem with my s3000xl. It seems that the scsi port is very sensitive to plugging things in and out.

I have heard different solutions to this problem. My dealer told me that if you plug in the zip drive again in the correct way it should read it again... but what is that correct way?

Some zip drives have two parallel ports on the back so you can use the zip in a chain between both your sampler and your mac or pc... if you do this you have to set a different scsi id for each piece of hardware (computer, zip drive, sampler). Maybe only one of the ports works with the sampler?

Ive had my sampler for nearly two years but have rarely used it because of lack of memory and zip drive. I'm trying to sort it all out at the moment - I have some memory coming in the post but I would really like to get this zip going. If anyone has discovered anything new then please post back!

I'm off to see if I can find a replacement scsi card...

Patrick