Brandon

How long does it take to format a 9g hard disk as an optical for the
synclavier?

Ummmm....  My 80 meg Quantum takes about 10 minutes.  My 3 gig Seagate took
at least an hour and 15 minutes???  A 1 gig (1 side) MO takes about 45 minutes
roughly.  So my guess is 2 1/2 hours.

Are you in the process right now and wondering if your machine has "locked
up"?  Give it some time.  Eat lunch (and possibly dinner :)  )  Let me know.

It took just about 2.5 hours.  It said format was complete but when I try to
view the disk, the error message" Error: disk is unformatted or inserted
upside down" displays.  Since there is nothing on the drive yet, maybe this
is supposed to say this? 

You need to index and name the disk in the 'R' page. This shouldn't take too
long.

When you get that message, a menu appears in the center of the screen.  Type in
a name and a caption.  If you want, enter a creation date and time.  Usually I
just name the disk  {Volume Name:  "Eat"},  {Caption:  "Me"}  Then respond to
the dialog box {Format}. USE DIFFERENT NAMES FOR DIFFERENT DRIVES!

Also, you have to create a .index file on the top level of your hard drive before the 'R' page
will work.  This keeps track of all the sounds on your optical drives.  If you already have one,
make sure there is enough room to store the additional information.

At the system prompt type:

enter w0:

create .index,small 10000

pla

Whammo!  You have an "optically formatted drive".

It worked!  Now all I have to do is the other 9g drive.

Excellent.  Just remember, only one drive can be seen at a time on the 'R'
page.

If you have some samples that you use all the time, copy them to the hard
drive.

That way you can pull the uncommon samples off the opticals when needed for a
particular project.  Just go under CONFIGUR and choose the SCSI id of the drive
you need to work with.  {drive 1, id 1  /  drive 2, id2}.

It is a pain having to go to CONFIGUR to choose drives.  BUT, it is so cool to
be able to spin through all those sound libraries so fast!!!  The initial
creative freedom is not so hampered by slow load times and ejecting media (you
will FREAK at the speed difference when using a Hard Drive over a WORM).

I personally would put musical samples on one drive and sound effects on the
other (or however you like to work).  i.e. I am a sound designer today, time to
mount id 2.  Or today I am a composer, time to mount id 1.  This reduces the the
likelyhooed of swapping drives continuously or having to copy strings from one 
drive to w0: and mounting a second drive for pianos.

Have fun.

Brandon Amison
Yaking Cat Music Studios
and Synclavier Information
http://home.earthlink.net/~yaking/

THE source of Synclavier information