Sony MZ-N510 - "Using too much power" issue - Help!

[tommyb12]

Hello everybody. Newbie from the UK, here.

I've got into the mini disc world this year by purchasing a Sony MZ-N510 (Type-S).

The unit is in good condition and I don't have any issue reading discs, or recording from an output line... except that I cannot connect it to either my Macbook pro or Mac mini.

Every time I plug the USB cable, it tells me "USB Accessories Disabled: Unplug the accessory using too much power to re-enable USB devices."

Because of that, I can't even use my Virtual Machine (Win XP) to bypass the device recognition.

I have used both plugged in the N510 with AA batteries and a 3V power adaptor. I even tried increasing the power input, but to no avail.

 

Help, please!

[sfbp]

You have to be able to permit USB events from the minidisc to be forwarded to Windows XP. I have no idea how this happens on Macs. I'd be inclined to believe it if someone told me it simply cannot be done. At the very least it will depend on whether the Mac in question supports SLAT (Second Level Address Translation).

With Virtual XP running on top of Windows 7 or 10, for example, the virtual machine gives me the chance to connect the "stub driver" in Windows 64 to communicate with the device and then the 32-bit USB driver that comes with the MD unit(s). This works for M-Crew and the PCLK-MN10 as well, and is a general method.

However, I would be more inclined to see about a REAL version of Windows on your Mac. I have no idea how this is done, but I believe there is something called "Parallels" for some versions of the Mac, especially the ones built around Intel chips (see how ignorant I am!?). In this case, the only problem is likely to be that as most modern versions of Windows are 64-bits (c'mon someone, tell me I'm talking rubbish) you need the 64-bit USB driver for NetMD.

If you had a HiMD unit, life might be a lot simpler, as no drivers are required to connect Sonic Stage to your MD (at least in HiMD mode). You could then tackle the issue of the NetMD driver (which we have here but which has to be loaded and takes a few tricks to do so) after you got the basic set up working. I know this much, I have put Sonic Stage onto someone in my family's Mac, and the non-MD part of it worked just fine. This might be better than trying to connect your unit to a 32-bit version of Windows (good idea you had, though).

Hope this helps.

 

[tommyb12]

On 7/14/2019 at 6:08 PM, sfbp said:

You have to be able to permit USB events from the minidisc to be forwarded to Windows XP. I have no idea how this happens on Macs. I'd be inclined to believe it if someone told me it simply cannot be done. At the very least it will depend on whether the Mac in question supports SLAT (Second Level Address Translation).

With Virtual XP running on top of Windows 7 or 10, for example, the virtual machine gives me the chance to connect the "stub driver" in Windows 64 to communicate with the device and then the 32-bit USB driver that comes with the MD unit(s). This works for M-Crew and the PCLK-MN10 as well, and is a general method.

However, I would be more inclined to see about a REAL version of Windows on your Mac. I have no idea how this is done, but I believe there is something called "Parallels" for some versions of the Mac, especially the ones built around Intel chips (see how ignorant I am!?). In this case, the only problem is likely to be that as most modern versions of Windows are 64-bits (c'mon someone, tell me I'm talking rubbish) you need the 64-bit USB driver for NetMD.

If you had a HiMD unit, life might be a lot simpler, as no drivers are required to connect Sonic Stage to your MD (at least in HiMD mode). You could then tackle the issue of the NetMD driver (which we have here but which has to be loaded and takes a few tricks to do so) after you got the basic set up working. I know this much, I have put Sonic Stage onto someone in my family's Mac, and the non-MD part of it worked just fine. This might be better than trying to connect your unit to a 32-bit version of Windows (good idea you had, though).

Hope this helps.

 

Thank you so much for taking the time to answer me!

I now feel like my best bet would be to use a proper PC machine rather an a Mac and a virtual one on top of it.

[sfbp]

Agreed. Sony came up with special Mac versions for some of the later Hi-MD machines but it was always a bit hit-and-miss; MDs are mostly-PC-oriented devices.