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Repair to HDD on Zoom MRS-1266 Porta studio? Is it doable?

wulbert

wulbert

pfm Member
I've dug out the old recording console to donate it to a local charity. However, upon testing it makes the occasional small, mechanical clunking noise which coincides with the playback skipping. It sounds like a small, plastic component moving in a small arc and back again. I suspect the part of the HDD that reads the disc.

Just wondering if it is an easy fix to replace the HDD with a new one? Pictures below. I have no idea if this HDD is off-the-shelf (20 years ago!) or if it is a special part for Zoom? Also even if it would work after an HDD swap because I understand that the operating system and start-up stuff is on the HDD.

Just bin it? ( It actually seems a well-made unit, quite a sturdy case and the HDD is surrounded by rubber shock absorbers) Or worth fixing?



 
Standard IDE HDD, you will be lucky to find one new, second hand from a HDD recorder like old Humax or old PC etc.

Pete
 
Pete MB&D said:
Standard IDE HDD, you will be lucky to find one new, second hand from a HDD recorder like old Humax or old PC etc.

Pete
Click to expand...
What about all the gubbins on the back of it? Second pic down. Chips and stuff. Is that just de-mountable hardware?
 
£160 for a new one. For 20GB of storage! Not looking worth the expense or hassle. I had no idea these things were so complicated. Looks like 8 discs and reading heads?
 
The hdd is in a cradle, the 4 screws will release it, the circuit board is part of the HDD you will need to pull off the black data plug and the white power plug.

Pete
 
I'd be tempted to pick up an old drive off Ebay for £15.

Or stick an ad in the classifieds here and you might find someone has one they'll let you have for nowt.

Will at least tell you whether the problem is with the drive.

edit: a quick google suggests you might also need the recovery disc that shipped with it to set up the drive...
 
critical that you format a new drive in the Zoom first. Gets complicated after that-since the Zoom uses 2 partitions unlike a Windows formatted drive. Then you must copy the "ver" and system.zex folder-with your hard drive connected to the computer-onto the newly formatted new drive. You will see the 2 partitions if you use Windows computer management program in Windows 7. I use a powered IDE USB interface connector to do this. Then....you still have to power up the 1266 with the update CD, and perform a complete restore-takes about 15 minutes, there is a lot of data that needs to be transferred to the hard drive and internal 1266 memory. Your Zoom will not be able to perform the needed functions to recover from the CD, until you manually transfer the system .zex file onto the hard drive. i noticed too, the drive was already formatted as FAT32, but it worked, only after i re-formatted the drive in the Zoom with its own format procedure. then and only then, will you see a fully restored Zoom MRS-1266

www.kvraudio.com

KVR Forum: Old Zoom MRS-1266 and actual Drive - Hardware (Instruments and Effects) Forum

KVR Audio Forum - Old Zoom MRS-1266 and actual Drive - Hardware (Instruments and Effects) Forum
www.kvraudio.com www.kvraudio.com
 
paulfromcamden said:
I'd be tempted to pick up an old drive off Ebay for £15.

Or stick an ad in the classifieds here and you might find someone has one they'll let you have for nowt.

Will at least tell you whether the problem is with the drive.

edit: a quick google suggests you might also need the recovery disc that shipped with it to set up the drive...
Click to expand...
Yeah, I've got the recovery disc with the OS on it. And the unit has an optical drive built-in. Thanks.
 
Wonder if you could use one of these and a SATA drive:

StarTech.com 40-Pin IDE PATA to SATA Adapter Converter - IDE to 2.5"/3.5/5.25" SATA drive adapter with HDD/SSD and optical drive support | Ebuyer.com

Get a great deal on a StarTech.com 40-Pin IDE PATA to SATA Adapter Converter - IDE to 2.5"/3.5/5.25" SATA drive adapter with HDD/SSD and optical drive support as well as thousands of products at Ebuyer!
www.ebuyer.com www.ebuyer.com

Small SATA drives are almost throw away now, think I have a 60Gb you could have if the adapter worked.
 
Puggie said:
Wonder if you could use one of these and a SATA drive:

StarTech.com 40-Pin IDE PATA to SATA Adapter Converter - IDE to 2.5"/3.5/5.25" SATA drive adapter with HDD/SSD and optical drive support | Ebuyer.com

Get a great deal on a StarTech.com 40-Pin IDE PATA to SATA Adapter Converter - IDE to 2.5"/3.5/5.25" SATA drive adapter with HDD/SSD and optical drive support as well as thousands of products at Ebuyer!
www.ebuyer.com www.ebuyer.com

Small SATA drives are almost throw away now, think I have a 60Gb you could have if the adapter worked.
Click to expand...
Thank you very much for the offer. However, I have sourced a used drive of the same model from Ebay, as suggested by @paulfromcamden. At £15, worth a punt. And £7 for a IDE to USB adaptor to attempt the formatting and OS install on the replacement drive. Worth a try to save it from landfill.
 
Having no joy with trying to copy the Zooms HDD onto a used replacement HDD.

I bought this cable and I am now able to connect the Zoom's original (IDE) HDD to my Mac via USB and see it on the desktop. It presents as two, separate drives "MRS-USR" and "MRS-FAC" so this must be the two partitions.

The problem is I can't do much else within the Mac's "Disc Utility". "Partition" is greyed out along with some other operations.
Same with the replacement Ebay HDD (£15). I was able to see it as "unknown" in disk utility, but was able to erase and re-format it to MS DOS (FAT32) which at least made it recognisable to the mac. Not able to perform and partitioning though.

I copied the two drives (MRS-USR and MRS-FAC) to folders onto the desktop and then copied them to the replacement HDD (click and drag), loaded it into the Zoom and its just "System Error" all the way. Can do anything to it within the Zoom's own maintenance feature either because it gets stuck at the first stage.

So, the problem is that I have no way of "cloning" the original HDD onto the replacement. I suspect if I did it would work. I just lack a "way in" to these IDE HDDs. Maybe if I had a Windows machine it would be easier? There seems to be an incompatibility between what the mac's disc utility can perform and this older style of HDD.

I wonder if there's an app that could manage this? Or do I need to buy physical bits of hardware? It is rapidly becoming uneconomical; £12 for the contact spray, £17 for the HDD (inc postage) and £8 for the cable. I don't want to give up just yet though.
 
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Fixed it!
Playing aroung in Disc Utility, I discovered I could partition the disc using Apple Journaled and then go back and change it to MS_DOS FAT32. Created two partitions with the same name as the originals and then pasted in the system files copied from the original drive. Hooked the replacement drive up to the Zoom and it threw what I thought was another error code, but then "Recover?" appeared as an option and when selected the OS ROM I'd put into the optical drive started spinning away. All seems well now, with the original cheesy "demo" song "Runaway" ready to rock.
Happy bunny and my missus thinks I am "clever".
Thanks for the help PFM-ers.


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