The DijonStock Digital Home Recording Support Forum

Hello,

This week I finally tried to upgrade my AW2400 by replacing the internal 40GB IDE harddisk. As IT-specialist I do realise that the old harddisk with moving parts don't have an endless lifetime. And the longer I wait, the harder it will get to find working replacement parts.

As I could only find a few old topics about replacing the harddisk with an SSD disk, I just would like to tell that I succeeded in upgrading the harddisk by using the following (recently bought) parts:

- CONRAD SATA to IDE harddisk converter (https://www.conrad.nl/nl/sata-naar-ide-harde-schijf-converter-974497.html)
You will need this as new IDE harddisks are hard to find, especially IDE SSD harddisks. At this time you will mostly find SATA harddisk (non-SSD and SSD).

- Samsung 850 PRO 128GB SSD (http://www.samsung.com/us/computer/memory-storage/MZ-7KE128BW)
Why the Samsung 850 PRO? Well, as I want to extend the life of the AW2400 as much as possible, this disk comes with 10 years warranty. Believe it or not, SSD DO NOT HAVE an endless lifetime. The memory cells on an SSD can also get broken, but you're only sure of the fact that there are no sensitive moving parts in the disk. With this 850 PRO series, I believe that it can be trusted for a long time of worry-free harddisk recording.

After replacing the disk, 118GB of free space is available which seems more than enough for me and 3 times more space than the original 40GB harddisk. When connecting the AW2400 in USB mode to your PC, two disks of 59GB will be available on your PC. Putting back all the song files I had on the original disk resulted in a working AW2400, being able to load all my recorded songs.

In the next posts I will describe the replacement procedure step by step.

I will follow this thread with great interest. Thanks.

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Byron

STEP 1 - Preparations

Prepare the harddisk replacement by:

- Getting the right tools (screwdriver to remove the disk, pillow to protect the AW2400 when turning upside down, some screws to mount the SSD)



- Buying a SATA to IDE converter



- Buying a Samsung 850 PRO 128GB SSD disk



- Creating/burning a CD with the AW-2400 OS 1.13 update (http://download.yamaha.com/search/detail/?site=usa.yamaha.com&language=en&category_id1=16244&product_id=1021076&asset_id=52030)
Just unzip the download at Yamaha and burn the AW2400PG.BIN file to the root of the CD-R.


STEP 2 - Backup all your data



Normally you should backup your data by using the backup function in the AW-2400. This forces you to use CD-R's to burn the backup data. I just put the AW-2400 into USB mode (press USB and confirm the mode change to USB mode), then connect the AW-2400 to my PC and copy all of the data to the harddisk of my PC.

Be aware that when connecting the AW-2400 to your PC in USB mode, two disks will appear on your PC (AW2400-1 and AW2400-2). One disk has the folder "Song1". The other disk has the folders "Song2" and "Transport". Just Copy all the content of both disks to your PC. When restoring the data at the end, you have to put back all the folders to the same locations!


STEP 3 - Removing the old disk

- Shutdown the AW-2400 and remove all the connectors (including power).



- Put the AW-2400 upside down on a table. Use one or two pillows to protect the front knobs and faders of the AW-2400. Now remove the six marked screws on the back.



- Take out the frame including the IDE harddisk and remove the IDE connector and the power connector.



- Remove the old IDE harddisk from the frame by removing the marked screws.


STEP 4 - Built in the new SSD disk





- Now mount the new SSD disk on the frame. Just be creative! Probably you cannot use the old screws and need to find some other (computer)screws to fit in the holes of the SSD disk. You also need to stabalize the construction due to the (unstable) isolationrubbers (used to prevent noise from the old harddisk motor). As the SSD disk has no moving parts, you don't need the isolationrubbers. Feel free to remove them to get a construction that's more stable.

- Put the SATA to IDE converter on the SATA connector of the Samsung 850 PRO SSD disk.



- Put the IDE cable connector on the IDE connector of the SATA to IDE converter. Keep in mind that pin 1 is marked on the SATA to IDE converter and on the IDE cable itself (green colored). It's quite easy to connect it the wrong way with risk of damaging the AW-2400 or the SSD disk.



- Now put back the frame into the AW-2400. As the extra power connector that comes with the SATA to IDE converter could cause unwanted connections to parts of the AW-2400 mainboard, I isolated the extra power connector with strong tape. You don't need the connector and by isolating it, you will be sure to minimize all kind of risks. Put back the 6 screws and the AW-2400 is ready to power on.


More to continue in the next posts....

Newbie of the century!

SSD discs do not have eternal life, au contraire. I had one in my PC and it lasted about one year. And then it was fried.

Welkom op het forum, Robbie de naamgenoot!

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Don't judge the coffee by its cup.
The proof of the cheese is in the eating

STEP 5 - OS update & disk format



- Now connect the powercable and turn on your AW-2400. In the display you'll see a message that the OS is broken. This is why you need to have the OS 1.13 update on CD. Because the OS is saved to the harddisk and we've replaced the harddisk, we've also removed the OS.

- Put the generated CD-R (as described in step 1) with the Yamaha AW-2400 OS 1.13 update into the CD drive and press the [ENTER] key.



- The OS will be loaded from the CD-R.



- You will be asked if you want to update the OS. Confirm by pressing the [ENTER] key.



- When finished, press the [ENTER] key to restart the AW-2400.



- Now it needs to format the new disk for supporting the song data format. Confirm by pressing the [ENTER] key.



- When finished, the AW-2400 will automatically restart.


STEP 6 - Fader calibration



- When the restart of the AW-2400 is completed, a fader calibration process has to be completed. Make sure that nothing prevents the faders for moving up and down. Press the [ENTER] key to start the calibration.

- At this point DON'T TOUCH THE FADERS!!! Let them move automatically and wait for the next screen information.



- When the first step is complete, you will be asked to put all the faders in the top position (that is +10dB for the white faders and 0dB for the red fader).



- Now put all the faders to top position and press the [ENTER] key when done.



- Now you will be asked to put the white faders in the 0dB position (the red fader can be ignored this step). Press the [ENTER] key when done.



- Now you will be asked to put the white faders in the -15dB position and the red fader in the -30dB position. Press the [ENTER] key when done.



- And as last step you will be asked to put all faders completely down.



- Now put all the faders completely down and press the [ENTER] key when done.



- Congratulations! All steps are succesfully passed and the AW-2400 will start in the SONG menu, showing a new (empty) song. Notice the new free disk size of 118.10GB.


STEP 7 - Restoring data

Before you continue restoring your previous data, be aware you need to restart the AW-2400 manually once!!

Restoring your data is easy.

- Put your AW-2400 into USB mode.
- Connect your PC to the AW-2400.
- Remove the newly created "new song" from the new disk (empty the content of the Song1 and Song2 map).
- Copy back the contents of the Song1 , Song2 and Transport maps as made in step 2.
- Exit USB mode

You will be prompted that the last loaded song could not be found anymore, which is no problem. Confirm the "Oh I see...." message and another (restored) song will be loaded.

LAST HINT ABOUT FADER CALIBRATION

If something goes wrong during the fader calibration, you can restart the fader calibration at any time by powering on your AW-2400 while pressing (and holding!!) the [JOG ON] and [ENTER] keys together until the fader calibration screen will appear.

Great stuff! Many thanks for the time, effort, and expertise.

would this upgrade be possible in an aw4416 ?

mark

Excellent thread. Nicely explained and the photos makes it possible for a novice like myself to try.

Thanks for sharing.

_________________
GSMUSIC: Hey RZ, Im not no upper class american, the gear I own is what I have special to me. My car sucks, my house sucks, my nieghborhood sucks. Does yours RZ? Does it?

rz-land

How should one call a newbie that is obviously not a newbie?

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Don't judge the coffee by its cup.
The proof of the cheese is in the eating

Perhaps Obi-Wan KeNewbie.

Hi Mark,

Unfortunately I don't have any experience with the AW4416, but I expect that it will work on the AW4416 too. Just like the AW2400 it's also using an (old) IDE harddisk interface.


Greetings,

Robert

Robert

A great tutorial for changing the HD. I have 2 HDDs in spare. Is the AW2400 faster in loading and use with the SSD?

Thank you very much
Andreas

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Blues aint nothing but the blues!

hi robert,

your thread is very interesting and complete ... i have started acquiring the parts needed and i will keep the thread informed of my progress ... this is exciting !
there are 2 aw4416s in my arsenault so the backup unit will be used as a test bed ...

mark

Hi Andreas,

I don't think the AW2400 performance is faster with the SSD. The machine itself is just working on old technical specifications. Personally I don't see any difference. Probably the performance is just related to the internal processor.

By the way, I think the performance of the AW2400 is very well balanced for a machine at that time. Even with a big multitrack everything works fine here.

Yes, the 2400 is a great machine, with even performance. I rarely have any issues whatsoever, but I did have a strange one the other day.

I had occasion to attempt to build a song track of a ragtime style song that goes around and around six times by piecing a good section of the track ( the first three go rounds ) twice. Didn't come out as I wanted (found another work-around), but in the course of the effort I had occasion to use EDIT > COPY(ALL Over). The 2400 would not do it. But the UNDO list indicated that it had been done. I had data on six tracks (1-3 on V1, 4-6 on V2, respectively). I wanted to copy all six,at once, to V.8. on track 1-6 respectively. When I did them individually, or as stereo pairs it worked, not so with the ALL command. I thought I had done that before, but maybe not???

A rare occurrence with this machine. Perhaps i'll have another go at a bench test.

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Byron

Problem!

Hi all this is my first post.

My hard drive is playing up and I found this thread. I contacted Scan computers today to buy the SSD and the converter only to be told not to as replacing a HD with an SSD without using Win 7 will cause the SSD to fail in a very short time.

On a scale of 1-10 my computer hardware literacy is about 4 so I was confused by this explanation, but he would not take my order.

What he said was that to use an SSD requires "Trim Control" which is present in win7. My understanding is that trim control controls where the data is stored on the ssd. I might be wrong of course especially as I believe he was "waffling". He even had the cheek to say I should up grade to modern equipment! Ha what does he know.

So can anyone shed light on this and confirm whether the ssd replacement as described here will work properly in the long term as the original drive did.

I have already tried to change the HD to a similar one and even with Yamaha UK's help failed as the 2400 did not recognize the new drive. And I tried everything to get it to work without success so if anyone knows which HD will work (I could not find a fujitsu HD anywhere on the net at the time) then please let me know.

I have used the 2400 for 8 years without a problem, except for being unable to get a new drive to work!

Perhaps someone with more IT expertise will come along, but the Win 7 thing does not sound correct to me. I've been running an SSD drive on my desktop computer with Win 8.1, and have never experienced any problems at all ... and clearly Robbiedoes has executed this procedure successfully. Stay with it.

I know zilch about computers so I most likely wouldn't attempt this ssd drive nor the one Keefy attempted with the 160gb drive. I'd be more inclined to try Keefy's version and after reading his explanation of which drive to buy on the other thread, it makes sense. I'm sure either way will work if you have the ability and nerve.

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GSMUSIC: Hey RZ, Im not no upper class american, the gear I own is what I have special to me. My car sucks, my house sucks, my nieghborhood sucks. Does yours RZ? Does it?

rz-land

Thanks a lot for this info! Ive just gone ahead and ordered the same thing, SSD adaptor and 2.5" to 3.5" converter chassis.
Ill reply back on how it goes once parts arrive

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My music website with free downloads https://www.rikibuckingham.com