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Help!! Trinity Plus from G/C with No sounds & won's format Floppies.

Hi All!! I just received a really NICE CLEAN Trinity Plus from Guitar Center in California (I'm in upstate NY). There was supposed to be a ton of floppies with it and of course they were missing in the box. I booted up the keyboard and it is on Software version 2.0 and there are no sounds in it at all. (They told me it worked fine at the store) I tried to format a few floppies to restore the original sounds and I keep getting a message: "Error in formatting medium" i TRIED 5-6 floppies, both unused and used disks. I did a reset and then tried formatting, but NG.

Is there a way to do a Trinity format on a PC???

I'm guessing that the battery was weak in the keyboard and it went bad on the long, cold trip. I'm also worried that the Floppy drive is no good, but not sure how to test it. G/C says they're gonna look for the box of floppies and ship them to me, but I'm not holding my breath.

I can probably load sounds in with a MIDI program, can anyone recommend one?? I've downloaded all the OEM sounds and have a bunch more from my last Trinity, and from here on Korg Forums.

I might also need to replace the battery. Are there directions around?? (I will search here and on Google). I know G/C won't back this up other that to offer my $$$ back.

Thanx in advance for your time and any help or suggestions. JP

I tried Trinitro last night to restore the sounds and kept getting the error "Trinity not responding" or something like that. I had it hooked up correctly (I think) as I could play a midi file on it. No word yet on if Guitar Center is sending the floppies. JP

Johnnypro,

Make sure that the floppies you are trying to format are the correct size/density -- the spec should be in the Trinity's manual. I think it is the "normal density" rather than double density that's needed. Also make sure that the write protect tab is in the correct position.

There've been several threads on replacing the floppy disc drive with a USB floppy-emulator. This mod lets you save and load from a USB data key rather than floppies - quicker, massively more efficient and compatible with newer computers as well. Worth it to search threads here.

Battery replacement is probably in order given the Trinity's age, but it requires a fairly complex dis-assembly to get at. threads with pics are archived here - search by subject. When you do replace the battery any voice data will be irretrievably lost, so at that point you'd have to have some sort of working download scheme to get any voices back into the Trinity, which means receiving those vaporous discs from GC (and hoping the floppy dive works) or getting Trinitro to work via MIDI.

This may be a money pit. Unless you have faith in the insides matching the pristine outsides, a very clear course of maintenance/upgrade and a good tech on speed-dial I'd think about getting the bucks back.


BB

I double checked the Parameter guide on the Floppies:
Use MS-DOS format 3.5 inch 2DD or 2HD floppy disks. When disks are formatted by the TRINITY’s disk drive, 2DD disks will have a capacity of
720 Kbytes (9 sectors/track), and 2HD disks will have a capacity of 1440 Kbytes (18 sectors/track).

So it looks like it will take both kinds of 3.5 floppy disks.

It looks like it will need at least a Floppy Drive and a battery replacement. I will search on both of those and the USB replacement mod. I've only got $250 into it right now, but don't want to turn it into a "Money Pit". It does seem that some members have replaced the floppy with a used one from a PC (I have a couple of those around), but the battery is soldered in I believe which might be beyond my Tech skills.

I will keep trying. Thanx for the response. JP

its quite possible someone has gotten a different floppy drive. if you can get your hands on another drive and switch that out. i've used random floppys that are hit and niss and i also spent to the stupid $60 for an alps which i have 2 of that work perfectly. the good thing is, once the new OS is loaded you shouldnt have to do it again.

Dont forget to Global - Filter Enable Sysex.

Then Trinitro will work....

Dump one bank at a time, then drumkits, then global, then songs. The Trinity gives errors when it receives "Dump All" requests.

It would be wise to replace the floppy drive with a 1.44 mb from a PC.

I believe the OS can only be updated via floppy.

Sam

: Dont forget to Global - Filter Enable Sysex. "

Cool, I'll try that tonight. JP

I got a huge box from G/C with over 50 floppy disks for the Trinity. But they don't work. Everything I put in the synth comes up as unformatted, and then nothing will format. This is a common sign of the floppy drive being shot, (I believe), from reading this forum.

I've tried to dump the OEM sounds in thru Trinitro, and only some of them go in, and the keyboard freezes up if you hit a bad one. Oh, and the Battery Low window is now coming up.

I give up. Back to G/C it goes. JP

I have an original copy of the Trinity Preload sounds and songs on a floppy disk. Do you still need this?

No thanx. Swapped for a TR Rack after replacing the floppy drive with one out of a PC.....