CF Card Reader Blues

Hey all.
Ive been using Mpc1k JJOS 4.99(h?) for over a year now. CF transfer took extra long with the usb connect on the device. so, i used my printer which has a built in reader. in the past this was my go-to option with using CF cards for my mpc 2kXL. the printer wasnt that fast, but faster than the 1k. well, just 10 minutes ago i was transferring a beat (11MB) to the card -Kingston CF 4 GB. then after 5 min it gave me an error about a .ALL file not being able to process and then erased EVERYTHING ON THE DISK. after relaunching my finder window to eject the disk i was forced to shut down my computer to retrieve the disk.

FYI im on a MBP unibody i7 8GB ram.
Card is formatted FAT32. that is what it read in disk utility, but im sure i formatted the disk in the MPC. i found the instructions on formatting on this site.

well, praying it wasnt true i put the disk in my mpc1k and yes it is. 2GB of beats are gone. I did back some up but mosts are skeletons and most the reason why i didnt back up is because it always took a. very. very. long. time.

theres still some hope- it lists that there is around 2300MB left on the card sooo does that mean the data is still there and possible to retrieve? now with this disk being the way it is im scared to transfer anything to and from any card...

anyone using something better for CF transfer other than direct 1k or a printer? Belkin, sandisk have anything? ive looked online, but i want to know from you guys which ones have a good track record with mpc type files. thanks in advance and hope i didnt sound like a bi*ch.

I use a Belkin 2.0 USB reader, but I do it on Windows with Bootcamp, due to all the issues that sometimes happen on OS X. Hidden files, unexplainable corruptions and so on, I've read so many weird thing on OS X and MPC files on this forum.

I'll try it tomorrow on OS X and see how it works and post again.

On your card it sounds like half the card has data still from that number you posted in MB's. Couldn't say if the data is retrievable or not.

Try a search here with OS X, CF and other relevant terms. I think I saw a thread this summer that was discussing software for recovery of data in a situation like yours, probably paid software though...not sure if whoever had a similar issue got their out or not.

So I maybe can't give you any clues on the actual problem, but at least I can test the Belkin on OS X. I also don't have any Kingston cards. Only Transcend, Lexar, SanDisk and a couple of the small Akai ones.

thanks for the input. yeah, from the searches on here the belkin unit seems the best in terms of stability, but still not great since i gots the Mac. i found some CF recovery software online (literally called CF Card Recovery) that im running right now.

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=140393

this give some good options on recovery software, but still searching.

oddly the CF card recovery software is reading a bunch of files as document.txt files but im glad it sees there is lost data. ill drop $20 for some software if i can get my stuff back. we shall see. i have thought about getting a cheap, cheap PC solely for transferring beats and i think it might have to come to that lol

It costs more to buy a Windows DVD, but I can verify, Windows runs great on modern Macs. Aside from no BIOS because it's still an HFS motherboard it's exactly the same as having a windows computer withe exact spec/performance of whatever your Mac hardware is using Bootcamp.

Maybe not worth it for only doing MPC files, but I never ever have an issue on 3 CF enabled MPCS using Windows for all my file needs.

I'll post tomorrow after doing some test reads/saves with the Belkin on OS X.

Using the printer was probably never a good idea, but water underneath.

Just get a USB CF reader,
pretty much any one will do.
And since it isn't a semi-automated device it wont "fix" your card for you.

The only thing I would warn you against is the 99 cent chinese multi readers like this one:



I may have just gotten a bad one, but one of those corrupted a card on me one time.
I'd stick to a dedicated CF reader.

Also although accessing your card through the MPC is slow, its reliable as far as I know.
And thats worth the piece of mind when handling the fruits of your time and creativity IMO.

I dont have a separate reader at the moment but I just set the MPC to do its thing, copying/pasting whatever and watch some TV or surf the internet for half an hour.