I'd like to propose two Q's to be A'd there (..) one is adding second disk driveHi Dragi,
I can't write FAQs. As you said, Mark and Tony are much better at this.
But I can share how to mount a second disk to the Mk2: I added my old (18GB second) Mk1 disk to the Mk2 two weeks ago. Getting the disk in place was not difficult, but getting the Mk2 to recognize it was more difficult because disk support in the Mk2 is slightly different from the support in the Mk1 (see story below)
I'll describe how I managed to move music from Mk1 to Mk2 in a separate post. (Thanks to amazingly clever empeg software, this proved simple).
1 Disk Support
The Mk1 came with two disk controllers, which made adding a disk really easy. The most difficult part was getting your hands on the (short) cable to connect the new drive to the board. The Mk2 is slightly different in that it comes with only a single disk controller, but you won't need an extra cable: the one used for disk1 already has a second connector.
2) Getting into the player
Though the Mk2 is built very similarly to the Mk1, getting into the Mk2 proved more difficult than opening up the Mk1. This is because of the way the lid is kept in place: two screws (either side of the Mk2 closest to the top corners of the front - easily removed); behind the front screen that you'll have to remove (the four hex nuts on the panel front - easily removed), and the prongs that hold the lid and the sides together like a strong box (the difficult part - see below). Finally, you'll need to pull the player's handle forward a little, so that the latches on the top of the player (that lock the player into the car cage) move inwards a bit..
The difficult part is that the two prongs of the lid (near the front panel) provide too little clearance for the lid to slid off easily. I used a screwdriver to carefully bend these two prongs down into the player some more. Once this is done (took several tries; the metal used for the empeg is pretty sturdy), the lid did came off without difficulty.
Be careful with the front panel components: the backside of the screen is said to be very susceptible to scratching. Don't touch it (handle by the sides) and lay it front-side down.
3) Mounting the disk
To get a new disk into place, you'll also have to remove the disk platter. Just as in the Mk1 (see the procedure described by David Moore for the Mk1) it is held in place by the two tiny screws on each side of the player. These are best removed with the player upside down, to prevent the platter from leaning on components inside the player
Once the platter is loose, carefully disconnect the cable from the drive. And have a close look into the interior. It is *very* neatly laid out. Lots of surface mount miniature components. Because it took empeg so long to start shipping, I expected some last minute alterations to the design / extra wire kludges, but there aren't any!
Because the Mk2 has two drives on a single controller, you'll need to make one drive the master and the other the slave. Easiest will be to configure the second drive as the slave by jumpering the appropriate pins (next to the pins that will go into the connector), while the disk is still on your desk (see its documentation). Also make sure that you have such a jumper handy; my disk came without one; same for the screws to mount the disk onto the platter).
With the jumper set, screw the drive onto the platter and press the connectors into place. Note that they line up correctly with all the pins on the drive, except the four pins on the right? that are used for the configuration.
At this point you may want to fire up the player and monitor (via serial) how it finds the second player. Make sure not to touch anything: the front display is fragile, hot (heat), and hot (60V).
If it works, disconnect power, and re-assemble the player. Again, hold the player upside-down while mounting the platter. Before you put the lid back on, have a look at the prongs again. If these needed bending, you may want to straighten them a little. With the lid is in place, put on the front panel again. Note that the buttons will lock if the scres that hold the front panel in place are too tight.
3) Formatting the new disk
I formatted the disk while it was still in the Mk1, using the procedure described by Kamau Wanguhu on David's site. But there is also an Empeg utility that does disk initialization and testing (though this also allocates space for empeg systems use -- formating won't do this). If you want to do it via Linux as per Kamau's instructions: the commands work, but empeg's responses are a bit different. Also, some commands take time to execute: don't panic.
4) Starting it all up
Then, when the player starts, it finds the new disk all by itself. New music files are allocated to the drive with the most available space.
I hope I haven't missed anything important. Good luck
Henno
mk2 nr 6Edited by Henno on 4/8/00 00:30 AM.
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