FD-4 storing songs with ZIP, SCSI???

[Trippalot]

Hey. Just got an FD-4 used with no drive and all I get at the startup is a "No Drive" sign. What will I have to get to begin recording and storing? A zip drive with SCSI? An external hard drive? Any suggestions? I'd like to stay with ZIP if it's possible. Thanx.

Tripp

[Jim Marquard]

Tripp,

you will need to buy a SCSI storage unit. Many people on this forum use an external SCSI Zip drive, either the 100 or 250 mb drives. Personally, I use a external SCSI Orb drive. They run about twice as much as a Zip (@ $179) as do the cartridges ($39), but they have a 2 gb storage capability (10-20 times more than a Zip). I have had absolutely no problem with mine. My biggest complaint is how hard it is to get extra cartridges, you pretty much have to get them over the iternet since Best Buy and Circuit City don't carry them. You can also get an external SCSI hard drive or send your unit to Fostex and have them install an internal IEDE hard drive (ande no, it is not very easy or wise to try to install one yourself--you need to the card from Fostex and they don't send instructions!!).

Have fun,

Jim

[Trippalot]

OK. Now I know I need a ZIP drive. Well, all the people I talked to at places such as Best Buy and Circuit City tell me that the ZIP drives that they sell are connected by parallel ports, not SCSI (which means I can't use them on the Fostex). And on top of that, they told me I would need configuring software so that the Fostex will understand what it's storing the information to. Are all drive compatible with the Fostex? Sounds kind of complicated to me. I mean, all I really want to do is have a second recorder (that would be the Fostex) to have some extra tracks and maybe to dump a few tracks via optical input/output. Any more suggestions?? Thanx.

[jet-rocker]

If the orb works for you great, but...... I had nightmares getting it to work with my fd-8, chunks of songs would get chewed etc.

You might be best off sending the thing to fostex and pay to have them pop in a drive (about the same price)

zip drive? You can only record two stinking tracks to the zip drive, that's a crummy trade-off if you ask me.

And no you can't just open the thing up and pop an ide drive in, fostex didn't intall the connectors on the fd4/8's that they sold without drives. That's why you'd have to send it back to them.

Am I bitter? ....just a little

-Jett Rocker

[bbbmusic]

Hey Jet-Rocker,

I used an Orb drive with my FD-4 and now use it with my VF-16 and I have never had a problem.......
Maybe it is/was a lemon drive........
Later
Bruce

[jet-rocker]

It was more than one lemon drive, I tried a total of three, and I'm still waiting for my refund from castlewood.
The last one started smoking after I plugged it in. So much for quality control.

Any way after bitching enough to fostex, they put in a teeny 2.1 gig for free, and it's worked fine since. So I'm just a little bitter as opposed to majorly bitter.

My suspicion is that my problem stemmed from both bunk orbs and a bunk scsi connector...

Anyway good luck. Just had to add my tale of gloom to the gush of optomism.

-Jett Rocker

[Trippalot]

Hey. You mean ANY zip drive will only record two tracks, or just the ORB. I got an Iomega 100 today and hope it's going to do the trick. Maybe?...

[jet-rocker]

The Iomega 100, because of its small storage capacity will only record 2 tracks of compressed data, which sucks.

The orb can do 8, because of its 3 gig disks, I just had big problems with mine.

You can try an orb, it's worked well for 50% of the people that I've encountered on this board. But it's a gamble.

Or you could call fostex and see how much for an internal, which can later be replaced for a bigger interal, if I understand correctly.

Good luck.
-Jett Rocker