‘Vintage’ E-mu Samplers and Gotek Floppy Emulators
I’m posting this because I was unable to find any literature regarding this specific case on the internet.
Some quick notes for proper installation and formatting of a Gotek Floppy Emulator in an E-mu EIV Classic series sampler.
Before installation, set the jumper on the pins labeled ‘s0′.
After installation insert usb stick and hold both buttons on the Gotek while powering on the sampler. The display on the Gotek will begin counting upward from 0 to 1000 while the E-mu continues its boot process. (The E-mu boot process may stall a bit as it attempts to contact the floppy drive, this is normal.)
Once the E-mu boot process has completed it will take a couple minutes for the Gotek to finish its format on the usb stick. Once the format is complete the display will return to ‘000′.
Restart the sampler. It will boot normally and recognize the Gotek as its floppy drive.
Now comes the tedium. Unfortunately, with the classic (pre-ultra) series samplers, the proprietary OS requires floppies to be formatted by the E-mu system (at least in the case of this Gotek and its virtual floppies), so, it is necessary to format each of the 1000 virtual disks on the thumb stick.
This is a daunting task. There is no bulk function to accomplish this and each format takes about a minute. The result is an investment of ~1000 minutes, just about 17 hours.
Fortunately, this is a one-time investment with worthwhile results, as having a 1.5gb removable solid state drive does make for a solid backup system.