d8b Forum

Hello

Been away awhile, but just got back to trying to get an external CF drive to Verify so it can be used for recording. I've tried multiple CF dradapters. all connected directly to motherboard secondary channel, and several CF cards (Lexar 32gb 800X, Komputer Bay 32gb 1000X...for example)

All adapters and cards are recognized by the HDR as the external drive with no issues. One of the cards has a project I loaded onto it just for testing. I also have formatted the cards directly from the HDR.

The HDR OS is on a 4gb CF card with ver 1.4 and works fine (thank you Anders). I'll mention that I have an MDR as well, and have the same problem with it, that is neither deck will verify any CF card.

After some thought it seems as if this is a "procedural" problem and not a hardware issue but I could be wrong. I welcome and appreciate any intel provided as to what this weird issue could be............I know.....everything in vintage Mackie is weird but I appreciate the help just the same

Larry

d8b, HDR, MDR, Windows 10, Studio one 4

ok, a few things you could try:

(I assume you are using two ide-cf adapters - are they identical?)

Try connecting the external adapter to the primary ide-port, and check whether it still boots and records fine.
You could also try writing the OS image to the other cards, and see whether they would boot in the adapter you normaly have attached to the primary ide port.

Could you make a few pics of the guts of your hdr?

Anders

Thanks for the reply. I have in the past used these same cards as the OS card on the primary channel which does boot with no issues and pretty sure it recorded fine as well.....will try again. Another clue........any attempt to verify with adapter and card connected to motherbord starts at 0, and immediately reboots the HDR all the way in to desktop with no issues. I would say it's the HDR, but exactly the same result on the MDR when trying to verify. In the beginning I thought the cards wer not fast enough, but jees....1000X is too slow?

I will start swapping cards, adapters and channels to see if anything changes. ....and will provide pics. Thanks again

Larry

ok. first, check that the problem is the same, when you switch the adapters around.
(so that the problem doesn't follow the paricular adapter).
Have you tried checking whether your 4gb card would verify as a secondary drive? (backup first...

OK, so all the swapping still doesn't allow verifying....... adapters CF cards, cables etc. The CF card I'm using for the OS is just a 4gb SanDisk and it is only 25mb per sec....way slow...and yet I can record to it so there goes the speed theory. It will not verify though.

The problem seems to be only with regard to the verify function. Any attempt to verify any card, any adapter, just reboots the system. I guess it could be the cards....(will try a couple more). I have even used a SD card in a CF adapter (class 6 which is pretty slow by today's standards) and it is recognized by the system, though it also won't verify.

And the beat goes on......thanks again for your suggestions. I'll keep trying and report any successes. If you think of any other magic I would appreciate it.

Larry

Hmm... if you've tried the various cards, adapters and cables in the various positions, and it still gives you trouble, I'm not sure what's wrong
I do wonder if having the upgraded large drive bios makes a difference....
I can try to do some tests on my other HDR - it's not upgraded.

edit: actually I can't test it - I only have one 4gb card - my other two are both 128gb, so they are too large without the bios upgrade.

I have been trying to get a CF to work in the removable tray and it will not verify either. But then again I can't get the CF to work as the Primary drive either. Still working on that.

I seen to remember it being said in this Forum somewhere that noone has had luck getting the CF to verify on the removable caddies. The thought was an issue with the Centronix connectors on the caddie and the back-place of the caddie drive. Not proven or disproved yet that I have heard of.

The other issue, not proven yet that I know of, is that the CF will not work in the Secondary IDE slot. It functions in the Primary, except in my case, but I'm sure it is me missing something! I'm old.

Anyone have any luck with this!

Also, I didn't think that a drive would record if it didn't verify? Am I wrong? I know you can backup.

Cheers
Bruce

ok, I actually did manage to test it out.

I have a second HDR, that I bought for backup (along with an MDR, which I gutted, and is now using as the cpu unit for the d8b, minus the powersupplies).

I managed to find one of the old 20gb hard drives, that I connected as primary, and then my cf adapter on the secondary port.
I installed a fresh version of the OS from scratch on the old 20gb harddrive.
Then I tried to verify my 4gb cf card for recording on the secondary.

The result is:
It did NOT verify (but went through the process without rebooting the hdr).

I remember testing this out on my main HDR, which verified just fine, when the adapter was connected directly to the motherboard (not through the caddy).

My assumptions from this is, that it just works better with the upgraded 120gb bios chip.
This is just my assumption - there could be other factors.. one interesting thing is, that the motherboard in my main HDR is of a green color, where as the motherboard in my second HDR is yellow - exactly same motherboard as in the d8b.
Other than the color, I can't tell any difference.

UPDATE.....

Finally got around to duplicating Anders' test and can report as follows

All test performed on an MDR with large drive bios upgrade

Tests on both direct connection to mobo, AND in external drive carrier

Lexar 32gb UDMA7 800x CF
Komputer Bay 32gb UDMA7 1066x CF
Patriot 4gb SD HC Class 6 in CF adapter (very slow write test)....pretty old chip

All drives will verify read and write without incident (no reboot)
NONE of the drives verify for recording, that is, can be used for "backup only"

Since the CFs are pretty fast, I don't know what to conclude from this other than Anders' assumption that a partial conclusion is that these drives require the the large drive bios in order to be used, as none of this works on the HDR which does not have the large drive bios.

I guess I could try some more CFs but I doubt that this is the issue to the "will not verify for recording" issue......has to be something in the motherboard design or bios settings, though I've tried all I can think of

Will continue to search for a solution to the VERIFY issue. Thanks for everyone's help

Larry