So hi all, here a little message from a sp-808 die-hard. I am searching for like a year for a replacement of the zip like most in this forum and found no solution till now... After screening the whole www for a amtron cf reader and replacements i had no luck. Ordered a Addonics ide-cf converter, installed, tried diff flash cards and no luck. Then i took it out and installed the os from edirol A6, which failed the first time (without problems by the way) cause it got stuck on 23% at sending the midi files, rebooted, resend the midi's and this time it went well. rebooted and now it says Edirol A6, Video Canvas 1.0.10, then i went to the next step, installing the harddisc. I opened it up, screwed in a maxtor 6.4 gb hd, had to replace the 40 pin cable by a longer one cause i put the back in the front or else i couldnt attach the power supply. First time he didnt see the hd, so i googled to see what kind of hd the a6 uses. It appeared to be a 2.1 gb. Then i created a exact 2.1 partion with paragon on the pc and reinstalled it, this time with succes. I rebooted and he asked to format, i did a full format and took about an hour. During this time i was scared it wouldnt work cause it took so long but ....When the format was done, i wanted to test of course so i pushed "sample" and it showed only 7 sec of sampling time!!! I freaked out cause i thought, mission failed (cause also of the long formating time). In panic i started to go through the system options to see if i over-looked something and yessss...i found it! one of the last options was, "select partition", i entered it and saw there where 4 partitions! I choose 1 after the other and the first 3 showed 9 hrs of sampling time!!! only the last was very short of course cause the first 3 were all 2.1 gb (with a 6.4 gb hd that made sense cause 1 part he keeps for ram i think). So the only thing apart from updating the OS to A6 and create 1 partition of 2.1 gb, was adapting a power supply from an old pc to feed the hd cause it runs on 12v. After 1 min of googling i found that that was easy cause you only connect the green entry with 1 black entry from the mother board cable and voila! power supply that runs without pc! So now its all fine...except that i lost a few functions like the onboard synth and the bpm functions but i dont care about those cause i use the synths from vsti which i sample and the bpm is also no prob cause i know the bpm from fruityloops and the lenght of the loop as well so i trim it to that lenght and done....only thing is that i dont know how to put it back to OS from sp-808ex cause he doent seem to receive the midi files now but i am figuring that still out, anyway, i got a sp-808 with 27 hrs of sampling/project time hihi..good luck to all...

that's sick man
sounds like a stressful process, but with an amazing end-result

Yes, it was very stressful cause i've been afraid of jamming the system with a perhaps wrong OS but he....the unknown is a bit scary most of times ha ha, oh yeah, 2 points that are worth mentioning; I did manage to get the sp-808 ex os back, though that was another hassle cause after trying for like 20 times to send the midi files from the sp-808 EX, from 2 diff places, i finally got succes with the original sp-808 1.5 midi update! I wanted to be able to do that so i still can use the synths and step edit (cause that doesnt work neither anymore with the A6 OS) when i please.
Second point is that, cause i installed the HD with the connections pointed out, i am still able to switch between zip and HD without openening the box! And another good thing is that, my first so buggy zipdrive has become faster and more stable cause i run it also on 12v!! Seemed that the zip drive likes more power! Before i started my experiment, my zip drive was freezing all the time, already whe i pushed the second sample pad and now i use four pads again, switch very fast betweem them and have no problems anymore....Oh yeah, after i put the sp-808 1.5 OS back, i updated to EX again so it was a 2 step way but again, with succes.
So what i do now, i make a lot of basslines and other samples on sp-808 ex , play it back to pc and switch to the A6 and record them there lol...
Now i am searching for a way to view the midi update files from sp-808 ex and the edirol A6 to see where the programming is that allows a HD in one and not in the other , so far no luck but again, i am a diehard and don't stop till i drop ha ha....good luck...

Ok, now the braincracking part starts...
I founda way to view the .mid files from the sp-808 + edirol A6 and guess what, they are both for the sp-808! Only thing is that they adapted a few things for the diff functions like d-beam, step-edit and so on...
What i also found is that its written in ANSI. Now i have to find someone wo does ANSI programming to find the lines (about 2500 per midi file lol) that contain the IDE detection. It's only a matter of finding those lines and copy/paste them from the A6 into the sp-808 ex files and replace the ones that are responsible for the zip drive detection and then the SP should be able to use a HD!!! Well, if i dont find someone then ill do a course in ANSI programming myself lol (already downing about 50 books on the matter cause I WILL FIND THOSE LINES, even if it takes a year). Or just to piss these guys from roland off for the discrasefull act to force a stupid zip while it can use a HD...grrrrrrrrrrrrrand i have proven my right by switching the sp into an A6 ha ha....I'll be back.....

sounds like a crusade now!

i applaud your ingenuity, it's great to know this can be done

I have to good reasons to believe its gonna work.
1. When adapted to the A6 , it does uses a HD (mine a 6.4 gb maxtor now)
2. The software is the same but then adapted cause when viewing the .mid files from the A6 it says sp-808 at the title meaning they are in fact the same OS but then slighty diff programmed...to be continued

Thank you for the encouragement! gonna need it ha ha..ill keep you informed....

We'll be waiting. You're definitely on the right track. And if you do find a solution, do you realize you'll be a HERO all over the world for all the SP users?

I know there's many many people lookng for an answer and as it seems it's gonna be harder and harder to finda Cf-Ide adapter that works as it looks that most compatible ones are discontinued or people ask like f**&#@ing 200 euro to take advantage of that situation, SHAME ON THEM!
So this would be def a cheaper and better solution then CF as the only thing you need is:
* A Harddisk
* a longer 40 pin IDE calbe then the one present in the sp-808
* a power supply from an old pc
* The A6 kit with the OS and manual (mail me when needed) or when i succeed, the new OS for the sp-808 ha ha....

I really wonder why they switched to zip disk cause the A6 is a older OS then the sp-808:

Title from A6: SP-808 Ver 1.010 (C)1995-1998 Roland Corporation
Title from Sp-808: SP-808 Ver 1.050 (C)1995-1999 Roland Corporation.

Duhhhh....

Wow, I get a Sp.808 this evening, in exchange for a Korg KaossPad3, I think its a very good change for me!!!!

And now I have the problem:

How I manage my samples? Where's the hard disk recorder? Fuck Roland!

I hope you will success in a few days so I can test your beta Os, and get a new Sp-808HD...

By the way, if you put the hd in the future, you will have to purchase a scsi zip for external loading? or you will swap the zip drive every time you want an external loop?

Excuse my poor language, I'm from Barcelona, and I haven't studied english never, I only read Japanese style English manuals, so I speak like an indian...lol

Un abrazo desde barcelona!

Hi! I've been testing around with the 808 1.0, and I could format the disk with the Sp, but it was the moment of sampling it get stuck. It began samplping(or it says so) but then you cannot stop tha thing!

Ive tested ntfs,fat,fat32, anyway it must format, and i tried master,slave and all the jumpers, but the result is always the same.

Then I went to the stores and after some jokes, and funny stupidities of the costumers, i found a cf card reader that was connected to the floopy, but i couldnt found any adapter to ide.so i didnt bought it.

then io found another card reader this one carryng a 40 pin ide slot and a 44 pin ide slot.

At the moment it doesnt recognize it.

Ill try this night with the 808ex OS and ill say something!

bye!

Hey people! I did it!

My ROland Sp-808 now is a Roland A-6 VideoCanvas!

I have 9 hours of sampling and i don't hear anything except the samples flowing out the machine!

80gb 5400rpm seagate 2.5" IDE-ATA

This is the unit I could put inside at last. I needed to use a 44pin to 40 pin Ide adaptor, and it is plug into the ROland power output for the zip and works like a charm!

No problem with the update, and no problem with formatting the disk. After that, i began sampling, and i have 9 hours left!!!!

Any question, post here, or mail me at KILLDACOP at hotmail dot com

Rufus Mac A Stik aka The Beat Bender did it

This is awesome.

It's a bad idea to go for CF to Ide these days though, esp. for 200 bucks for just the converter.

CF cards being sold now practically go from 4Gb and up and soon to be 8Gb and up. Meaning older equipment likely can't deal with the size and the higher speeds.

Adding a hard drive makes way more sense.