Korg Forums

(Late in the game) I am just playing with a near mint Korg D1200MKII and am curious about a few things that I can find NO info about anywhere in any manuals or other on-line user forums.

These first two are regarding the installed hard drive;

1. Is there a way to determine how much free or used space there is on the currently installed hard drive?

2. What is the maximum hard drive size that can be installed in this unit AND how can one tell if or when the full size has been initialized?

Also curious if there is or was ever an OS update or upgrade for this unit?

I know that this is an older model, but hopefully someone has a clue about these tech questions (that seem very basic to me).

THANKS in advance for your assist~!

AK

Well, since no one else came along to answer this one (actually two), I did some leg work and will share my results. (Yep, relic machine)

First, the installed drive questions. There is NO information about this anywhere that I could find. Manuals, forums, nada, anywhere.

Strange that no one else considers the hard drive specifics to be of (critical?) interest in a hard disc based recording device.

Just me, I guess. Well, I found this one out by accident. The original installed drive in my D1200MKII is apparently a 40 gig drive.

I removed it, looked at it and so can attest to this. I then installed a 200 gig IDE PATA 3.5" drive, which recognized and initialized fine.

That's when I got curious about the D1200MKII OS drive limitation, in other words, what size drive will the unit see and utilize.

Without ANY info in the manual (or anywhere) regarding upgrades, I then tried an 80 gig drive and a 120 gig drive, which both worked fine.

The problem was (for me), I still wanted to know WHAT the heck SIZE of the drive was being initialized and utilized. That is when I found;

When I went to do a back-up (to USB), there were several options listed, and ONE of the options (top one) was the installed hard drive WITH the size listed~! Now we were getting somewhere, finally!

Nowhere else was this size ever reported in any of the drive utility menus. Very strange, but at least here it was now on the screen.

My original 40 gig drive seemed to show as a 38.XX gig drive, probably due to the 2 gig USB partition that gets created. Cool.

Next I went straight to installing the 200 gig drive which I now found registered as 135 gigs! Ah-HAH, now HERE was a limitation!

Apparently, the 135 gigs is about the max that the OS will read, utilize, initialize or see or whatever. Anything more seems to be wasted.

So, for now it is back to the 40 for me until or if when I bump my head and then want to increase to the 80 or 120 that I also have here.

Next; What OS or System File is currently available? Now, again I ask, WTF?!?! The Korg USA site has a page for "resources", but NO system files?!?! I finally found system files on Korg.UK. Nice!

Apparently (for the D1200MKII) the latest OS or System File is 1.03 with a date of Feb. 2003. Yoiks, this unit is a relic and no support in 10 years.

My OS / System File was version 1.00, so I smoothly (following the directions included) upgraded to system version 1.03.

Here is a link to that Korg.UK resource page if anyone cares;
http://www.korg.co.uk/support/downloads/d1200_dl.php

Next, I'll be playing with this unit to see if it is still a viable (though limited) option to use as a simple scratch pad recorder.

My biggest (haha) issue with this thing is the TEENY freakin' text everywhere on the surface and in the menus. Made for kids, I guess.

Qualification; I am a grandfather, rocker from the '60's and my eyes are not what they used to be, but even with glasses, yikes!

I guess that this is (partly) why so many now opt (wisely) for using a PC (or Mac) based recording system and the standalone units are slowly but surely fading from popularity. Nothing like a nice 21" or bigger monitor.

I said the same thing when I bought my first "smart phone" many years ago and the salesperson said proudly, and you can watch video on it!

Now, who, in these days of giant 80" (plus) screen TVs is going to want to watch video on a 2.5" screen?!?! Oh, well, I was told;

While waiting on line at Motor Vehicle it keeps me from going crazy.
Yep, sure is hard to simply relax and breathe for 20 minutes without some sort of media stimulation. Such is Our Modern Society.

Hope this helps someone else who is taking a crack at one of these cool little machines. I'm having fun already... More to come, perhaps?

AK

Hi guys,

I picked up a used D1200mkii last week. Great little unit! Since it still got version 1.00 installed on it, I tried to get the 1.03 OS from the support page. But unfortunalely Korg has removed it. I also got a negative response to an email I sent them. Does any of you guys still have the downloaded file? Would be great!

Cheers,
BG

I.korg.com/support

Has all the files.

I downloaded all of them.



Just bought a d1200 mkii off the bay....

Am quite excited to hear it!

Has anyone figured out how to hook the D1200 to a daw like fruity loops??? This is a nightmare trying to figure this old relic out and connecting it to my computer. I’ve seen a video on YouTube of a guy that did it but he doesn’t show how he did it of course... Any tips would be greatly appreciated thank you and rock on

Many thanks to AshokanKid for the leg work in determining usable capacity of this fine machine, the Korg D1200. You can get brand new 2.5" hard drives and a 2.5"-3.5" adapter and a bracket to hold them to make this recorder dead silent. So a 2.5" 120gb should give three times the storage space of the stock 3.5", with absolutely no whine. I should have done this upgrade years ago. New ide laptop drives are going for a bargain right now. I have no desire to learn new recorders, having mastered the D1200. It's my brain that's tired, not my eyes with its small screen. I just want to keep pressing the same familiar buttons... I love the quiet of this machine now.