A MUST READ: Flashcards

Flash cards are apparently way easier to corrupt data on than i thought. I was having problems saving to my card, so i did some research, and found this... a must read for all 1000 users... even though it talks about them in referance to cameras, i'm sure these all apply to the 1000 also.

http://www.nyip.com/tips/flashcards0604.php

I figured out that my problem was being caused by renaming, moving, and deleting files on my flash card from the computer while it was hooked up via USB. Apparently this is a common cause of corruption of flash cards, and should be kept to a minimum.

Anyway, read the link... you can skip the first 11 paragraphs if you don't care about HOW the cards work, but starting on paragraph 12 is the must read info... blew my mind about the problems caused by editing the card from the computer. There's other interesting symptoms and causes in there too that I know I've heard people on here asking about. Lesson learned: Backup and reformat more often than you think you need to.

damn. I do MOST of my naming/editing/moving of the files from the computer while the card via USB. good lookin out

nice tips, thanx!

thank you,
i´m havin problems with my cf-cards yesterday, so thank you for hearing my swearing in your neighborhood

"renaming, moving, and deleting files on my flash card from the computer while it was hooked up via USB. Apparently this is a common cause of corruption of flash cards, and should be kept to a minimum."

man, this cannot be right. Moving and editing files from the computer is what flash cards are made for

where it says "Opening, renaming, deleting, or moving files around on your memory card while accessing the card from your computer, via a USB/Firewire connection to a card reader or camera", I think he means to be doing that simultaneously from the PC and from somewhere else (eg your camera).

How would you update files on your card without the pc? I have a card reader on my PC and never use the usb mode on the mpc1000..

I only had problems with flash cards (I have memorystick, SD and of course CF cards) in very rare ocasions when I didnt stop them before removing them, and even then I think that the risk is only when the file system has not completed its operation, for instance, be moving files and ejecting the card midway

You need the HD drive,it's more stable, I don't even use my one gig (CF) to do transfers. Only if that's all you have and yes backup as often and reformat. CF card lifespan is not long as HDrives, just limit deleting and copying back and forth from cf to PC. it's be known to cause problems in the long run. my twocents

I've never had problems with any data corruption on my flash card, and I am using the stock 32MB card that came with the 1k (for 2 years).

Make sure that the card is ejected/dismounted BEFORE it is removed from the PC/Mac. Having open files on the card will not allow it be ejected in WinXP (meaning, if you have a sample from the card open in a wave editor, you may have to close the open wave first).

And regularly back up ALL of your data, preferably to CD-R, an external HD, or some other removable media.

Yes, I know, I ALWAYS stop the device before disconnecting the mpc or removing the card. That is what is strange... I have always been very careful, yet my card was very corrupted. It is not an old card... maybe only 2 months old or so. That was why i was so puzzled.

Next time you guys have the MPC hooked up to the computer, try this... check the properties of the card and see if it is reporting the free space correctly. My card seemed to be working fine (except for an occasional error when saving). The MPC was able to write to it, but the computer was reporting it as full... and full of bad sectors. I would have never known unless I had checked the properties to see the free space. I do a lot of renaming/moving files on the card from the computer, and also I do a lot of chopping (well i DID b4 os 2.1) and saving direct to the card from my DAW runing Sony Vegas 6.0. Maybe this has something to do with it? I know these things aren't supposed to corrupt the card, but it's the only explanation I can come up with since I am always VERY careful with it.

I guess it's possible that my card just sux...? It's a Kodak 512 MB card. Although I think it's more likely that it just got corrupted because that's just the nature of the cards, as mentioned in the article... anyway, no harm done. All was fixed with a backup/reformat. Just wanted to give everyone a heads up on how iffy they can be.

aren't they making hard drive with flash memory? wouldn't that present a massive problem??

???

Antonym wrote:aren't they making hard drive with flash memory? wouldn't that present a massive problem??

???

they have made entire hard drives from flash memory, and i guess they could suffer the same, but they're used more in military and enterprise applications, where the software is more tailored for the hardware.

however, i think microsoft, along with some others, is developing hybrid hard drives where there is a flash buffer on top of the ram buffer already in today's hard drives. as flash has a faster access time than the hard drive, the flash portion will be used as a kind of cache for frequently read, but infrequently written files. that way the OS will boot faster, applicatons will open faster, and hopefully computers will be better, though that remains to be seen.

all you need isa microdrive, like the 2gb hitachi microdrive. cause its a harddrive instead of the flash drive.

I'm sorry, but I have to say that article sounds a bit out there to me. Many of the tips are good (painfully obvious) basic safety while some are mostly paranoia. Then there are a lot of problems that I would attribute to the camera instead of the card.

Trust them 100% and we should all wear helmets i case of a lightning strike.

And furhter more... HDs are hardly the mort durable of mediums for a portable device. Shake / vibrate or drop your MPC and the HD will fail a lot sooner then a CF card.

just my opinion.

hydroslanger wrote:all you need isa microdrive, like the 2gb hitachi microdrive. cause its a harddrive instead of the flash drive.

yep, or a hard drive
/unhelpful faecetious comment.

eimermusic wrote:I'm sorry, but I have to say that article sounds a bit out there to me. Many of the tips are good (painfully obvious) basic safety while some are mostly paranoia. Then there are a lot of problems that I would attribute to the camera instead of the card.

just my opinion.

I thought about that too, but the source is credible, and really the symptoms were exactly what was happeneing to me and others on the forum. I just thought it was interesting, and is the only explanation I could find for the problems I was having with corruption, since I have always been very careful with the card. A lot of it was obvious to US, yes, but you would be suprised how not-obvious it might be to some.

Like I said, I would have never even known that my card was full of bad sectors had i not noticed that the computer was falsely reporting it as full.

I read the article. A lot of hoopla. For the list of the major causes of corruption in flash: items 1-7 are essentially the same thing. #8 is not possible since you cannot acess the card from the MPC while connected to the PC. #9 can be an issue but fails to explain why. #10 is not relevent since the MPC uses the same formatting as a PC. #11 is NA, #12 is questionable since that is implementation specific and I doubt all manufacturers implement the same crappy delete routine. #13 is the same as #9. #14 is the same as #1-7.


That really only leaves about three things that could corrupt the cards and that could be summarized as follows:
1. When finished writing to the card from a computer, wait an additional time (at least as twice as long as it appeared to copy the files) before unmounting the card. Unmounting the disk simply tells the OS to flush the buffer, but since the MPC is "between" the card and PC, the MPC may tell the PC it is OK to remove but it is actually not.
2. If you have filled a card and finally remove all the files, just format the card before using again. in other words, occasionally format a card. Ideally this can be done on the MPC, but I have not had problems with cards formatted in windows, Mac or Linux as FAT16 and they were not using any strange disk utilities (i.e., turn off that Norton System works, it is particularly bad in Macs).