BR1600CD Hard Drive Error

[StephenM]

I started getting a "Hard Drive Full" error a while back.... started deleting a bunch of old stuff....the problem kept coming back even though I know it wasn't full.... I dug around and found a solution that is actually supposed to be performed every few months if you use it alot, which I do... the solution is initializing (surface scan) the Hard Drive..... and it worked very welll....but...... you lose all your data....but it works great now...
and the problem was that I had some tracks recorded that I could not get off the recorder except by analog out real time recording to my zoom unit...which I did...track by track... and then put them back over the same way when I was done... and I completed my latest song ("Out In the Cold") with the tracks....the quality did suffer a bit IMO but I did not want to re do them all....

[64Guitars]

I started getting a "Hard Drive Full" error a while back.... started deleting a bunch of old stuff....the problem kept coming back even though I know it wasn't full.

Next time you get the HDD Full error, try doing a Song Optimize after you delete your old stuff. It can free up a lot of wasted space. According to the BR-1600 manual, "When you overwrite or erase audio data by overdubbing, punch in/out recording, or track editing, this audio data will not actually be deleted from the BR-1600CD's hard disk." Song Optimize will permanently delete all of that unneeded data. As the name suggests, Song Optimize only affects the currently-selected song. So to reclaim as much space as possible, you should go through all of your songs and run Song Optimize on each one. In theory, Song Optimize won't harm your song data, but it's a good idea to do a backup first just in case.

[StephenM]

I started getting a "Hard Drive Full" error a while back.... started deleting a bunch of old stuff....the problem kept coming back even though I know it wasn't full.

Next time you get the HDD Full error, try doing a Song Optimize after you delete your old stuff. It can free up a lot of wasted space. According to the BR-1600 manual, "When you overwrite or erase audio data by overdubbing, punch in/out recording, or track editing, this audio data will not actually be deleted from the BR-1600CD's hard disk." Song Optimize will permanently delete all of that unneeded data. As the name suggests, Song Optimize only affects the currently-selected song. So to reclaim as much space as possible, you should go through all of your songs and run Song Optimize on each one. In theory, Song Optimize won't harm your song data, but it's a good idea to do a backup first just in case.

Thanks 64....I didn't see that one... it's funny I have been recording quite a lot for over 5 years with this.... I have deleted stuff but I never thought about the possiblity of fragmenting.... I'm only a very marginal computer guy so....

[AndyR]

Yep, Song Optimise clears the unused audio down. But I've found it doesn't always give you all the space back.

So after time you'll find less and less space available, even after deleting projects you finished and backed up.
I imagine it's just lost clusters.

Re-initialising the partition does get the space back. But you do lose the existing data - so back up first.

I've only had to do this once, but this is what I took to doing after it happened...

I take advantage of there being two partitions on the BR's hard disk.
I try to keep them clean and alternate between them.

Each time I finish a song (completely finished, I have the stereo master I'm prepared to share):
I song optimise it to minimise the disk space it takes.
I back it up to an external drive via my laptop, using USB
I also back up the user data folders at the same time (global effects settings, etc).
(Note that the BR is USB 1.0, doesn't seem to like the USB 3.0 sockets on my laptop, it works, but it's REALLY slow... the USB 2.0 slots are fine... this might be the BR or my laptop, I don't really care - it works at a reasonable lick with the BR in the 2.0 and the external in the 3.0)

I then test the backups by restoring them to the other partition on the BR: Switch the BR to use that partition, restore and check the project and global settings out.
If all is OK... I proceed as follows:

On the backup drive I change the names of the backup folders as follows:
Add the name of the song to the Song Folder's name.
Add the date to the names of the user data folders.

On the BR, unless I want to use it for the next project, I remove the finished song.

I do have a couple of "template projects" backed up ready for restoring onto the BR if I want them (eg everything set up to do live guitar/vocal song with 3 condensors - that's the one I use now, the others, not sure what they are anymore)

I also have some aborted projects backed up - I've got 3 or 4 songs half recorded that I intend to come back to (one of last year's completed songs was from that lot). They were all on the BR when I hit the "where's all the hard disk gone??!?!" issue.

By the way, for getting ALL audio out of a BR1600 song project I have this utility: http://www.topsoundproductions.com/products/wav-maker-1600/index.htm
Works a treat on a song back up on the pc, but I rarely need it. Most of the time to get audio out, I just use the BR's export/import Wav via usb. I use this to get my Mastered Mix off the BR onto the PC as a wav file. I then use Audacity for wav to mp3 conversion.

[StephenM]

Great information Andy....thanks..

[bruno]

I always get disk error on reboot if I leave a CD in the caddy. As long as I open the CD draw right at the start of boot up, then it boots up no problem. It is a rather irritating bug, but I have lived with it for years so am used to it!
B