I just replaced a failing HD in my PA1XPro, and wanted to share what I learned.
My PA1XPro started making a terrible noise upon startup, and finally it just wouldn't recognize the Hard drive.
A user on this forum (Wittid) recommended a specific solid state hard drive; I got it new on Amazon for $99 ( thanks, Wittid!). The this post for details: http://www.korgforums.com/forum/phpBB2/ ... hp?t=76972
My PA1X had both the Latin Styles and Golden Entertainer boards installed.
When turning the PA1X over to access the hard drive, I used pillows to cusion it so that all the weight wouldn't be on the joystick.
I pulled the old drive and used USB-to-IDE adapter (Sabrent USB 2.0 to SATA/IDE HD Adpater) to hook the old drive up to my PC. You could hear horrible noise as the HD tried to work, and the PC had a very difficult time reading from it. But, I was able to copy everything off of it.
I did notice that the new SSD drive had a jumper on it that the old drive did not have. On the new drive, the jumper indicates whether the drive is in master, slave or cable-detect mode. I removed the jumper so that it would visually match the old drive, installed the drive, and turned on the unit; but in "slave" mode the PA1X didn't even seem to recognize that the hard drive existed. So, I pulled the new drive and put the jumper back on. With the jumper back on (in Master mode) it was recognized. (I didn't bother trying "cable-detect" mode).
Now that the SSD drive could be seen by the PA1X, I formatted it. Another user on this forum (Reuben) advised me to give the new volume the same name as the old one (see post http://www.korgforums.com/forum/phpBB2/ ... hp?t=77162), so I did.
Then, I powered everything off and back on. The PA1X would boot up, and display the main "style" screen, but the disk light (the blue LED on the Disk button) was lit and everything seemed locked up. The style said "NO STYLE" and some of the sounds seemed blank. I assumed this was because there were no files on the HD yet. But, I couldn't get the unit to respond in any way, so I couldn't hook it up to my PC via USB and copy over the files.
Instead, I pulled the new drive out again, used my USB-to-IDE adapter to plug it into my PC and copied over all the files that used to be on the old drive. I noticed that the new drive DID have a "DirectHD", "PCM" and "Startup" folders, implying that the formatting worked, but they were empty. When copying onto the new drive, I did not replace those folders, but merged the contents from the folders on the old drive onto the new drive. I don't know if that mattered; maybe I could have just replaced the folders altogether.
Once I had everything from the old drive copied onto the new one, I reinstalled the new drive and started the unit back up. The unit took longer to boot up, which I took as a good sign - that it was loading all the startup data, PCM data, etc. This time, when it reached the main Style screen, I could see my styles that were showing up as "NO STYLE" before, and it looked like all the sounds were there. But again, it seemed stuck with the Style Play screen showing, but the blue DISK light lit and everything seemed locked up. The touchscreen would work, I could change styles, sounds, etc, but I couldn't seem to get the physical buttons to change out of "Disk" mode. Even though the screen was showing a style, the Start/Stop button didn't do anything and no sounds would play.
I turned it back off, then back on. This time, everything loaded up just fine and the unit worked normally. Now everything is back the way it used to be - except that it boots up quite a bit faster now with the solid state drive.
I've turned it off and back on several times to make sure it wouldn't get stuck with the "disk" mode light on again, but so far, everything seems ok.
I'm still not sure why it would get stuck with the "Disk" light on and become unresponsive. I'm not sure if it had anything to do with my expansion cards looking for files that it couldn't find, or what, but once all the files and folders were copied over to the new drive, and it was able to load up everything once, then get rebooted, it seemed fine.
Thanks again to Wittid and Rueben for their good advice.
My Hard drive replacement story
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Reuben
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Iv'e still got my old 1x (I've had the 3x for a few weeks) and decided to turn it on this morning only to see that the hard disk had failed.
I drove to the nearest computer shop thinking they might have an old disk drive they could "give" me. No luck there.
Then I remembered I had a very old (15 year +) lap top in the garage I was going to throw away. I open it up and saw that the drive looked very similar to the one in the 1x. It was only 2gb (ample for my 1x) but I plugged it in and turned it on and the old 1x instantly recognized it!
I formatted it in the 1x and called the volume label the same as before.
I then connected it via USB cable to my computer and copied across a backed up version of DIRECTHD and then turned the 1x off and back on.
Instantly all my saved midis/songbookentries worked but the PCM data was missing for the Grand Touch Piano.
Next I copied across a saved set and loaded it and BINGO everything worked as before.
Very happy that my old 1x has a second chance to live. Its still a mighty machine!
I drove to the nearest computer shop thinking they might have an old disk drive they could "give" me. No luck there.
Then I remembered I had a very old (15 year +) lap top in the garage I was going to throw away. I open it up and saw that the drive looked very similar to the one in the 1x. It was only 2gb (ample for my 1x) but I plugged it in and turned it on and the old 1x instantly recognized it!
I formatted it in the 1x and called the volume label the same as before.
I then connected it via USB cable to my computer and copied across a backed up version of DIRECTHD and then turned the 1x off and back on.
Instantly all my saved midis/songbookentries worked but the PCM data was missing for the Grand Touch Piano.
Next I copied across a saved set and loaded it and BINGO everything worked as before.
Very happy that my old 1x has a second chance to live. Its still a mighty machine!
You´re right worth.
I love my PA1XPRO with the Expansion Boards from Musitronics (Golden Entertainer and Organ Legends) and this 8 year old Key sounds much better than (for my ears) the new PA600 which i bought some weeks ago.
The difference in the sound is like another galaxy. Ok, this is a very subjective point but this is my impression.
From the operating point of view the new keys are much better than my PA1XPRO (the performance of the interfaces are much faster and all the handling is much faster) but not from the sounds.
I love my PA1XPRO with the Expansion Boards from Musitronics (Golden Entertainer and Organ Legends) and this 8 year old Key sounds much better than (for my ears) the new PA600 which i bought some weeks ago.
The difference in the sound is like another galaxy. Ok, this is a very subjective point but this is my impression.
From the operating point of view the new keys are much better than my PA1XPRO (the performance of the interfaces are much faster and all the handling is much faster) but not from the sounds.
I grew bored with my PA1X about 5 years ago. I got the Golden Entertainer card, and it was like having a new instrument. Eventually, I bought a PA3X. I thought the PA3X sounded so much better at first.
Then, I had all these hard drive issues with my PA1X, and so it hasn't been used much over the past year. Now that I have it running again, I surprised myself with how great it sounds! It really is a great instrument. I think my biggest complaint with it was how I had to turn it on about 15 minutes before I was ready to play it - but with the new SSD drive, it boots up in only about 5 minutes .... still slow, but a huge improvement.
I love both the PA1X and the PA3x .... and when you chain them together using MIDI, they sound phenomenal. I only wish I knew how to get the PA3X to trigger variation changes on the PA1X.
Then, I had all these hard drive issues with my PA1X, and so it hasn't been used much over the past year. Now that I have it running again, I surprised myself with how great it sounds! It really is a great instrument. I think my biggest complaint with it was how I had to turn it on about 15 minutes before I was ready to play it - but with the new SSD drive, it boots up in only about 5 minutes .... still slow, but a huge improvement.
I love both the PA1X and the PA3x .... and when you chain them together using MIDI, they sound phenomenal. I only wish I knew how to get the PA3X to trigger variation changes on the PA1X.
