No Device / Volume Won't Mount

[Jayson Wonder]

Hello All,

I, recently moved and after 6 months or so, I finally was excited to set up some of my music gear. Everything was great until I powered up my MX-2424 and could not load any projects. It seemed to boot up without issue, after trying to load a project I saw a message indicating that no drives were mounted. I tried to mount / unmount the drive and it can't see any device. It seems that the SCSI drive in the locked bay (which of course I have no key for...) is not being recognized but it was perfectly before. Nothing changed. I check that the cables were all seated and the drive is getting power. Even booting the unit without hard drive connected gives no error which seems odd.

Any ideas where to begin to troubleshooting this issue. Under SCSI ID it shows none...

I really want to get this running again so any help is appreciated.

Thanks,

 

[witzendoz]

Sounds like a dead drive, is the drive actually spinning up when you turn on the power?

Alan

 

[Jayson Wonder]

Hey there, thanks for the reply. Went back to take a closer look with the cover off etc. So there is a green light that flashes on the drive which I assume is the control board or disk activity light?? In any case, I do not hear the drive spin up. It stays quiet and no vibration if I carefully touch it.

I therefore feel you may be correct. if the HDD is dead than I must begin the search for a decent replacement. This is a SEGATE Cheetah, 72GB. I want something bigger if compatible. I hope it is not the SCSI cable or terminator at the end of the cable...? Buying a new drive will be an expensive means of troubleshooting so I hope that is actually what it is.

Any other thoughts on a diagnosis with this info? I cannot see any local shops selling SCSI drives or related SCSI parts so I guess it will be an online purchase.

Any recommendation for compatible drives new or used from good sellers? Please share.

I really want to fix this so I can get a few more years out of it if possible.

Thanks for your help.

 

[witzendoz]

Hi Jayson, sorry for the late replay, Christmas and all that stuff.

I buy SCSI from Ebay, its hit and miss but if it's cheap enough it's worth the risk. Don't pay more than $25. You need a 68 pin drive.

Most Seagate drives with a LW at the end of the part number work, I recently bought a whole box of Hitarchi drives, they seemed to work but then give out a "Media too slow message" once there is some usage, still working on that as they should work.

The problem with secondhand drives is that they may have a strange formatting that prevents the MX from seeing it while you are trying to format. I have a old PC with a scsi card so I can check out the drive, but it does not always work.

The biggest drive the MX can handle is 72gig, I find the best size is actually 18 or 32 gig, and I have a 72gig mounted as well for backup.

Cheers
Alan

 

[Jayson Wonder]

I appreciate this info, I am now searching for 68pin scsi drives. My old one was 72GB, hopefully I can find something similar in size.

Thanks,

 

[Jayson Wonder]

So I got another SCSI drive to try and troubleshoot the issues I am having with NO drive beign recognized.

No luck, the new drive was not recognized. The drive seems to be fine so unless there is a pin select option or something else i am missing, I have 2 drives and neither are recognized.

So that leaves me to wonder if it is the SCSI cable and/or what looks like a terminator or controller card of some sort on one end (not very familiar with SCSI). Maybe it is a issues with the mainboard in the 2424 but everything else seems fine.

I did notice that my unit display is very dim on start and sometimes the text gets brighter when the machine stay on for a while.

I am wondering if anyone has experience troubleshooting these units? For example I see some lights on one of the boards, 3 or 3 orange an a red. Perhaps these are codes? Is there a boot up log or anything for this machine.

I really loved this MX2424 and hate to loose it over a issue I might be able to resolve at a reasonable cost.

Any advice and experience is appreciated.

Thanks,

 

[Caveman]

I’m nowhere near my mx but long shot, unplug power.
Go inside locate the power supply, can’t remember pretty sure it’s under a metal cage. There will be three wires going to a board I think they are grey they are power cables with almost like a banana plug in end. Unplug those three wires and plug them back in firmly. A lot of issues with pwr supply were from those three wires being plugged in but not cleanly they came loose over time.

I actually ordered brand new mx2424 pwr supply about $265 back in 2001? But before I got new supply in I reseated those three wires and BAM!!!!!
After that I went with an external scsi in an old sun case and the original pwr supply did great once I went external.
It’s a long shot and we’re going back 20 years but I had a lot of screwy issues due to pwr supply.

 

[Jayson Wonder]

This was my connection to the AC in, I removed and reseated these.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1JvcFMAD1M1dZ5zgyUrYMvza9vMU2pxAc/view?usp=sharing

After removing the grill on the power supply I checked these...

I removed and reseated this on the PS board.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1KCS3e6uGT48AFkC3aSsZGt6cxJOZrmJk/view?usp=sharing

I removed and reseated this on the PS board.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1KTCo_8qzaeKWa7XF2_DCWuQskQdoRZCo/view?usp=sharing

Every things seemed fine, all connections seemed tight when I removed and reseated.

These are the light in question now. Are they simply activity lights or do the provide a status / condition state. This is like a detective adventure.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1JwLa-fTwMYIRBB9MAOwPfahgT7HjtpZH/view?usp=sharing

It boots up perfectly, aside from a dim screen. It is just recognizing the HDD. I see light on the drive flashing which leads me to think there is some data exchange.

Maybe this could be software or perhaps even user error. I have not changed anything in terms of the way I used or start it up. The only thing that happened was it sat in storage and then I moved, it was well boxed up am protected too.

I am being tempted now with the urge to browse ebay for another MX or maybe an X48 but I still got to try to solve this before I throw in the towel.

Any thoughts are appreciated.

 

[Caveman]

Great photos, nice and bright clear.
Sorry reseating didn’t help, always a good go to, these systems need precise clean power any small change will mess things up.

I can’t get to my mx for 6-8 weeks to open it up look around.
I had a bad drive, replaced it with another bad drive it drove me crazy lol
I’m sorry this has to be frustrating to nth degree. I love MX’s keep coming back to them. I like mxview very comfy using it, fast get job done quick not overkill with plugins etc and I prefer using board and rack gear. I can mix in box I just prefer board and rack.

It could be a circuit board issue and on positive side, your problem has inspired me to pick up spare MX jic and can use extra parts.

I hope you get this figured out.

 

[kzhus]

Hi,

Before I moved all HDDs to external units, I had a No-device error due to a bad SCSI terminator. Changed ribbon cable + internal terminator and it worked fine. Just in case your issue was similar.