MS750 is back in business

[jdandy]

A huge thank you to Henry (member Thedo) for his generous gift of a brand new power supply board for my MS750. It arrived today surprisingly fast from California. As soon as I had the power supply home I pulled the top cover off my MS750 and started the installation. My first snag came when the ten pin connector on the new switch mode power supply turned out to be a quick disconnect plug and different than the ten pin soldered harness on the existing power supply. I had to desolder the board connector from the old power supply, clip the solder tabs off, flair the openings in the bottom of the plastic wire connector so that it could pushed down on the pins of the new power supply board. Lucky for me the pins on the new power supply board and the doctored connector lined up.


. . . .


With that problem solved I completed the installation of the power supply board into the MS750, made the electrical connections to it, reinstalled the 750GB hard drive, connected my monitor and powered up the music server. I heard the hard drive spin up then it began making a clicking noise from the hard drive every five seconds over and over with a whistling sound in between the clicking noises. It would not boot. The hard drive evidently took a hit when the original power supply failed. Not good. Fortunately I had a back up 750GB hard drive with the OS already installed on it plus one music CD that I had copied to the new hard drive when I first loaded the OS to make sure everything was working correctly. I removed the failed hard drive, reinstalled the new hard drive and powered up the MS750 again. Eureka! The MS750 booted right up then went into standby. I pressed the Standby power button and the MS750 came back to life as I know it. The front panel lighting is back, the CD drawer is working again, and the monitor displays the menu. I shut it down again, reinstalled the MS750 back in my Salamander rack, made all the connections including Ethernet, and all is well. Dan Siegel - Fabels, the one CD on the hard drive plays perfectly. I reset the operating perimeters, checked for OS updates, and let out a big sigh of relief. My MS750 is back in business with a brand new power supply and a brand new 750GB hard drive.

I haven't been as faithful backing up the MS750 as I should have been, but the good news is I do have a backup that has 90% of what was on the failed hard drive so I am not totally back to square one when it comes to reinstalling my music. I'll have to get the manual out for instructions on installing my backup, then figure out what other music I want back on the hard drive. What a relief to have the MS750 operating again without having to ship it off for repair. I plan to order another 750GB IDE hard drive as a spare. The one I had sure came in handy when the chips were down.

Finally, once again I want to express my heartfelt thanks to Henry, (member Thedo) for coming to my rescue with the new power supply board. That was extremely generous and much appreciated. Henry's concern for my issue demonstrates what a great audio community we have here and what a pleasure it is for me to be part of it. Henry, you are the man! .

[1KW]

Great story Dan, glad things worked out. The MS750 is a nice piece to have . It does not look like your going to see a replacement model this year. How did Henry happen to have a replacement power supply board ?

[Maks]

Great news!

[lwschwartz]

It is nice to know we have folks like Henry in our community. Willing to step up and help out when he can.

Dan, you will need to copy your back up files to the import directory on the hard drive. You will need to use Windows XP or Mac OSX Snow Leopard to do it. I use Win XP and a program called Tera Copy. That is what Escient recommended because it has very good error correction. It will take some time to copy the files but they will work fine. It will leave the directory structure in place which is needed for the MS750 to reindex.

I have done it several times and the process seems to work fine.

Best of luck,
Larry

[-E-]

It is great to see a fellow AA'er help out like this. Superb!

[jdandy]

Originally Posted by lwschwartz

It is nice to know we have folks like Henry in our community. Willing to step up and help out when he can.

Dan, you will need to copy your back up files to the import directory on the hard drive. You will need to use Windows XP or Mac OSX Snow Leopard to do it. I use Win XP and a program called Tera Copy. That is what Escient recommended because it has very good error correction. It will take some time to copy the files but they will work fine. It will leave the directory structure in place which is needed for the MS750 to reindex.

I have done it several times and the process seems to work fine.

Larry.......Uh oh! I have my backup on a 1TB USB 2.0 hard drive. I made the backup on my Windows 7 desktop that is network connected to the MS750 via a wired Ethernet connection from my router. I still own an older Sony Vaio laptop that has XP as it's operating system but the USB ports are 1.0. Will I be able to access the import directory from my Win7 desktop for the backup installation. I don't believe XP supports USB 2.0.

I guess the worst case scenario would be to reinstall all my CD's by hand like I did in the beginning. I still have all my CD's so it could be done.

[lwschwartz]

Dan… Your USB hard drive should be backward compatible to USB1 so it will work with the laptop. I don't think the problem is getting the files off of the MS750. Escient told me a couple of years ago that the different operating systems act slightly different in writing files so I would suggest using Tera Copy on your older XP laptop with the USB hard drive attached. It will take longer than USB 2 but they should make it into the import directory fine.

I do all of mine in a VMware client on a Mac Pro so I have access to large drives, RAID, etc.

Let me know how it works and there may be another work around.

Wonder if there is anyone who can repair your power supply board so it can be kept as a spare?

[-E-]

Originally Posted by jdandy

I don't believe XP supports USB 2.0.

I guess the worst case scenario would be to reinstall all my CD's by hand like I did in the beginning. I still have all my CD's so it could be done.

XP will support USB2.0 if your hardware supports it.

Reripping CDs sucks, and I would urge you to consult with me before doing so.

[Beowulf62]

Congratulations Dan! Fixing something oneself with a little help from one's friends is not only satisfying, it is also reassuring to know that a treasured piece of creative engineering can be resurrected.

[jdandy]

Originally Posted by 1KW

Great story Dan, glad things worked out. The MS750 is a nice piece to have . It does not look like your going to see a replacement model this year. How did Henry happen to have a replacement power supply board ?

David.......I believe Henry said he purchased the power supply board from Escient before they closed their doors.