What always bothered me about that mod, was that the original drive caddy for external IDE drives no longer worked. Also because this means no compatibility with old HDR/MDR drives.
I finally figured out how I can keep them both working in the HDR - but not simultaneously. Just one at a time, while choosing with a switch I installed, if I want to use the IDE caddy or the SSD caddy before powering the HDR on.
For this, both caddies need to be connected to the same IDE cable that goes to the secondary IDE controller on the HDR’s mainboard (in my case, I used two IDE extension cables to make them reach)… but that alone doesn’t make it work.
Additionally, I installed a DPDT switch (“Double Pole/Double Throw), that depending on the position, only supplies power to EITHER the SSD caddy OR the IDE caddy… never both at the same time. (It needs to be a DPDT since IDE supplies both 5V and 12V voltages, that need to get switched at the same time).
As long as both, the SSD caddy AND the IDE caddy get power, the HDR gets confused and the caddies don’t work. So, I had to find a way to cut the power from the unused device… hence the DPDT switch.
So, before I power on the HDR, I insert either an IDE or SSD caddy (they can actually both be inserted and locked, as long as one doesn’t get power), put the IDE/SSD switch in the position I want, and then let the HDR start. With the BIOS set to auto-detect the attached drives, it always looks for/finds the drive in the caddy that gets power.
Long story short: I am now backward-compatible with “old/original” IDE Mackie external drive cartridges for the HDR, as well as “future proof” thanks to being able to use SSD drives in my external SSD drive caddy. I just have to choose which before I power on the HDR.
YAY!
Some background why this was a challenge in the first place:
Like most “vintage” computers with IDE Harddrive controllers, the HDR has two such controllers.
On regular PCs (or when running Windows on the Mackie hardware instead of the Mackie OS), two IDE controllers usually mean that you can use up to 4 IDE devices, because each of the two IDE Controllers allows connecting up to two devices and using them at the same time. For each IDE controller, one connected device/drive needs to be “Master” (aka “Device 0”) while the other device needs to be “Slave” (aka “Device 1”).
These settings are usually done via jumpers on the IDE drives… but for the HDR, everything always needs to be set to “Master” (…or in rare cases, “Cable Select”… but it shouldn’t be necessary).
Different from “regular” PC computers, the HDR only supports 2 IDE devices in total. It still has 2 IDE controllers (which usually means up to 4 IDE devices), but each of them can only handle a single “Master” (Device0) device. No “Slave” devices are recognized by the Operating System the HDR is running (the BIOS could recognize 4 drives, but the HDR/Mackie-OS does not).
That all makes practical sense, though, since the HDR only supported a single internal drive for the OS (that also allows recording), plus an external device via the IDE Drive caddy slot, each HDR came with. There was never meant to be a provision to use more than 2 drives in the HDR.
So, the problem comes in, when trying to run an internal drive for the OS (or CF card, like in my case… that one’s accessible from a card slot in the back of the HDR in my case), PLUS two external caddies… that’s 3 IDE devices (since the SSD caddy gets converted to IDE via an adapter so it can be used in the HDR), and that’s simply not possible with the operating system the HDR/MDR is running.
The first thought I had, was to set both, the SSD drive caddy AND the IDE drive caddy to “Master/Device-0” and have them both connected to a single IDE cable (with 2 device connectors)… then “activate” each of them by locking or unlocking the caddy with the lock/key each of them has (the drives won’t get “mounted” or found in the BIOS if the key on these caddies isn’t in the “locked” position… pretty standard stuff for such caddies).
Unfortunately, selecting which caddy is active only by putting only one of them in the “locked” position did NOT work. Apparently, the PC hardware still “saw” the 3rd device (because it received power and did “something”) and had it get in the way, even though the BIOS correctly recognized either the SSD caddy or the IDE caddy, depending on which I “activated” with the key, the HDR would never find the IDE caddy after booting up all the way.
From my understanding, this is because of how IDE works and how “Slave/Device1 is present” messages are communicated on the IDE bus, if there’s more than one device connected (something about pin 28 being open or closed).
I tried what happens if I unplug the power cable internally, from the “unused” caddy before booting up… and that actually worked. But I wouldn’t want to open the HDR every time I want to switch caddies, of course.
So, I ended up installing a DPDT switch on the back of the HDR, that allows me to supply power to either ONLY the IDE drive caddy OR the SSD drive caddy.
In practical terms, this means that I only have to flip the switch to either the IDE or SSD position before powering the HDR on, and the corresponding caddy on the front panel of the HDR will then be active.
In other words, I now have a choice if I want to run the HDR with “old” IDE drives (e.g. someone might bring one to restore an old session), or with “new” SSD drive caddies, before I start up the HDR.
If there’s interest, I can put together a list of the hardware I used to achieve this and a step-by-step list… and there are also ready-made solutions to individually power drives down that don’t require soldering… I just wanted to make this happen with what I already had here at home (i.e. a DPDT switch like you’d install in a guitar for a coil-split)… but it’s also possible without soldering
. ). Anyway… just thought I’d share. I hope I can finally leave the lid on the HDR closed for a few years, hahaha (…I really only decided to finally try around with this mod, b/c I had to replace the battery again… and figured, if I already open the HDR, I better make an improvement instead of just swapping out the battery).
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- SSD_Caddy_Active_.jpg (Array KiB) Viewed 1588 times
- ATA_POWER_AorB.jpg (Array KiB) Viewed 1593 times
- Caddy_Switch_StupidSpot.jpg (Array KiB) Viewed 1593 times
