Tascam mx2424 Primary Drive Crashed(?)

D

DanTascam24

Member
(TASCAM MX2424, software version 3.12)

My (original stock) primary drive stopped responding. The front control panel froze-up.

There is an original stock internal back-up drive, (NOT a hot swap) mounted underneath the primary drive.

I also have an external scsi drive connected to the rear panel scsi port, which is functioning properly.

I opened the mx case, dis-connected the non-responsive primary drive and connected the internal back up drive. (I had it disconnected to keep it cooler in the box, and also, so the MX would boot more quickly)

So, as I said, I RE-connected the internal back-up drive.

Upon power-up everything responded nicely and I am up and running, with the internal 'back up' now being used as my primary internal drive. The external drive is also functioning properly.

I left what was originally the (male) plug on the ribbon tape, for the primary drive, un plugged, and the power cable is removed from mother board.

Should I place a terminator in the male connecter on that ribbon tape, where the primary used to be plugged in?

Should I connect the internal WORKING drive to the plug where the primary WAS plugged in?

The working internal drive is defaults to drive "0"

Should I name the external drive "1"?

Thanks, I'm guessing you're still around, Alan? Or whomever has an answer.. Thanks again, Dan (formerly DeeCeeMonterey) I changed my UserName because I forgot my password.
 
OK, I think I know what you are asking LOL.

The original internal primary drive: SCSI treats this drive as any other so it really is only the primary drive because it was installed in the MX so in reality it is just another drive in the SCSI chain.

Yes, you can use the internal backup drive no problem, in fact I have no internal drives all mine are external, SCSI tower with caddies and the primary drive is whichever one I select to do the recording.

You don't need to worry about the terminator inside the MX as there is one mounted on the end of the ribbon cable as standard. You usually need an active terminator on an external case (drive tower) as you are extending the scsi chain, however some external cases have an active terminator already built in. The fact that this is working OK would make me think this is the case.
Just to clarify: When you have no external scsi connected to an MX, the terminator that is on the internal cable of the MX acts as a SCSi terminator. When you plug in an external cable to the rear SCSI port and plug in a SCSI drive you need to have an active terminator after the last drive (physical last drive on the cable). However as I said before some external drive cases have an active terminator built in.

You do not need to change the internal plug over to the original one as in scsi it makes no difference which plug in the cable is used.

The scsi drive numbering system is up to you, the only thing you can't do is have 2 drives with the same number. I usually make my main recording drives have the lower numbers, i.e. 0, 1, 2, 3, and my back up drives 6. This is because in MX view the recording drives appear above the backup drive on the computer screen.

Back to the dead drive, does it do anything at all or has it died completely?

Cheers
Alan.

Cheers
Alan.
 
Hi Alan, thanks and sry for delay in replying. The good news is I am up and running, and your advice above is just how I handled everything. I wanted to be sure, before I closed up the box. All is well.
As far as the dead drive.. Well it was peculiar. The drive was still getting power, I'm pretty sure I could hear it whining, but it was simply not being acknowledged by the MX, and the front panel would freeze up, making it necessary for me to hard boot.
And then I would power-up and mount the external SCSI drive, connected to the MX rear panel, and it (the external) would respond perfectly. I know that the drive that died had not been used much, in fact it's possible that it sat dormant for 7 or 8 years., maybe it was a mechanical thing.

When I received this MX, 5 or 6 months ago, it was 'new old stock'. I switched it on, and at first I thought it was DOA, but it was just taking a few seconds to wake up. Must've been 5 seconds before the display actually lit up, so I think it had been sitting a while. Now it responds in about 1 second and boots up quickly. The dead drive is in a drawer, and the internal and external are in harmony, and both are doing smart copies , recording and playback just fine. thanks again, cheers. dc
 
DanTascam24 said:
The dead drive is in a drawer, and the internal and external are in harmony, and both are doing smart copies , recording and playback just fine. thanks again, cheers. dc
Click to expand...

If you have access to a PC or Mac with scsi you could have a look at the dead drive and see if cleaning it and re-formatting it may fix the problem. If you don't have a computer to do this on, if you could get the mx to start up with the dud drive, then leave it unmounted or unmount it if it does mount, try a low level format and an initialisation on it, this is all done with the drive unmounted.

However the drive could be dead and gone, this does happen form time to time, LOL

Cheers
Alan.
 
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