Share your knowledge on these two classic MPCs
By michaelkevin Tue May 08, 2018 5:06 am
Hello, would be grateful for any input on these issues! ...

I have a 3000 running Valixi 3.50. My storage is a compact flash (don't know the brand/model of the card reader that is installed).

Does anyone have any general tips on preventing file corruption with this setup? Or perhaps some insight based on my recent run-ins with file corruption? Here's the rundown:

I've had quite a few files corrupting. It seems to only be sound/".snd" files that corrupt, but sometimes this will wreck an APS file with one corrupted sound file that loads as part of the APS. The errors I've got the past two days are FF50, FF80 (those two always come together), and F600.

A) the FF50 - FF80 one-two punch:

FF50: "Attention! The system was unable to access the hard disk. Be sure the SCSI drive is turned on, properly connected, and formatted. [Error code: FF50]"

Then, after I exit that message, I get this FF80 error message: "Attention! There is no floppy disk in the drive. Please insert a disk. [Error code: FF80]"

Then, when I go back to DISK / (7) Load, erase, rename ... A file that is NOT the first file of partition A is shown. It's the 11th file. weird.

I can give an exact occurrence of when this happened tonight. I was cataloging my CF card: renaming, erasing, general organization, etc. I was on disk H. It had two APS files. One called "HI SKY.APS" was loading just fine, a program with a bunch of synth samples and cool filter settings. Another called "CHET BREH.APS" wasn't loading--I didn't note the error message caused by "CHET BREH" but it was FF50 or F600--but I wasn't worried about keeping this "CHET BREH" program, so I just erased it along with the .snd files that were part of it. ***After I did this, one of the HI SKY sounds is now giving me the FF50 error. It had loaded up fine just a minute before. All I did was erase the "CHET BREH" APS file and its SND files that were not even in the HI SKY APS. And since this newly-corrupted SND file is in the HI SKY APS, I can't load that APS anymore. Bummed! I would love to use this APS, but even more, I'd like to know if I'm doing something wrong, if there's a discernible cause to this file corruption, or if I can do anything to avoid this kind of problem.

For extra details... the HI SKY APS sound file that has now corrupted is labelled "HISKY_CHCRD2C.snd". It's the eleventh file on partition H, where all this happened. I know that's a long file name, but that shouldn't cause corruption on the CF card, or incompatibility with Valixi, should it?

B) I was getting error F600 last night. I don't recall the exact circumstances or error message. But it was a similar situation with a couple .snd files causing this error message. I believe the error message involved disk formatting or active SCSI disk, or something like that. I'll post the error message if I get it again. I've still got partitions I-Z to catalog and clean up. But I won't erase any more files for the time being, since doing so seems to occasionally corrupt others!

Any help or suggestions or ideas or sympathy is much appreciated!!

I'd like to use my MPC 3000 to do some live performances this summer and fall, but I'm not sure I want to build performance programs with these corruption problems cropping up fairly regularly.

Cheers
Kevin
User avatar
By JUKE 179r Wed May 09, 2018 1:25 am
rename your files to only 8 characters.
Instead of "CHET BRUH.APS" try "CHETBREH.APS"
or
instead of "HISKY_CHCRD2C.snd" try "HISKY_CH.snd"
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By Shostakovich Wed May 09, 2018 5:09 pm
The FF50 and FF80, IIRC, are errors reading first the SCSI (FF50) and then floppy (FF80).

I used to get this and it was the VGA board interfering with the SCSI board. I reinstalled the VGA and things have been better (not experienced a crash).

But yes, the filename might also be the problem here.
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By richie Thu May 10, 2018 7:42 am
Kevin,

In your Vailixi settings, verify if multi sector mode is enabled or disabled.
By michaelkevin Sun May 13, 2018 9:18 pm
Thank you guys very much for the helpful input here!

- @JUKE 179r ... I'll go ahead and rename the files with an 8-character limit.

- @Shostakovich ... The VGA board... do I open up the MPC and disconnect then reconnect the VGA board? Or do I need to replace the VGA board? Just want to clarify what this re-install entails

- @richie ... Multi sector transfer mode is disabled. Here's exactly what it says when I go to DISK / Copy, format, other (9) / Make a SCSI hard disk active (5):
STATUS: SCSI ID 1 IN USE
SCSI multi sector transfer mode: OFF
SCSI disk unit to make active: 1
SCSI bus reset when AUTO scanning: OFF
Timeout for SCSI scan (secs): 30

- @vout ... the CF card I'm using is a SanDisk 1.0GB CompactFlash, pic in the link below...are these solid cards?
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1nsli8 ... gYM15exqbr

Thanks again so much to all! This machine has been so fun and inspiring, I want to iron all this stuff out so I can reliably take it out for live performance.
User avatar
By richie Wed Jun 20, 2018 10:26 pm
@michael so where are we at with this progress wise?
By vout Sun Jun 24, 2018 2:50 am
I think the most likely cause of file corruption on any flash card is fake media - At one time it was estimated that 95% of all memory cards on ebay/Amazon were fake - ie they had less true capacity than they reported to the os and they were usually slower and less reliable than genuine cards. You can check the true capacity of a media card or drive by using this windows software -

http://www.softpedia.com/get/System/Sys ... estw.shtml

I test every single memory card I buy with this program and still find a high proportion of fake cards out there, even from sellers who guarantee genuine items. Sandisk cards have always been widely faked, along with all other leading brands.