Akai Force Forum: Everything relating to the Akai Force, the new 64 pad, clip-based standalone sampler/groovebox from Akai. While not an MPC, it shares many similar software features to the MPC X/MPC Live including the same underlying code-base.
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By SnowMetal Sat Aug 06, 2022 7:45 am
Timo wrote:I'd love those instructions to convert it to NFTS without data loss!



I have performed this function dozens of times, but never in an Akai Force. Also, I was mistaking exFAT for FAT32 format. I've converted a FAT32 drive to NTFS, but never an exFAT. I don't know if it works the same. Just a caveat.

To convert a FAT32 drive to NTFS:

1. Run Command Prompt as administrator. (Type cmd into start menu search, right click and "Run As Administrator")
2. Note the drive letter. We'll use Drive E as an example.
3. In the Command Prompt window, type: CONVERT E: /FS:NTFS /NOSECURITY
4: Hit enter and wait. It will take some time, but not that long. Also, the conversion requires 23kb or so of space, so you may have to remove a tiny something from a completely full drive.
By HouseWithoutMouse Sat Aug 06, 2022 1:56 pm
My thinking goes like, I'll use the recommended way, so when there are problems, I will get the same problems as everyone else, and not something different that nobody else has. :) At least there's less filesystem bookkeeping overhead needed for ExFAT vs NTFS.

I think that any possible crash-related filesystem corruption can only happen during explicitly invoked save operations. Maybe excluding recording streaming audio. And if that happens, you're screwed anyway. A quite hypothetical situation. I'm not running an on-line database server on the Force's SSD or anything.
By Timo Sat Aug 06, 2022 7:30 pm
SnowMetal wrote:
Timo wrote:I'd love those instructions to convert it to NFTS without data loss!



I have performed this function dozens of times, but never in an Akai Force. Also, I was mistaking exFAT for FAT32 format. I've converted a FAT32 drive to NTFS, but never an exFAT. I don't know if it works the same. Just a caveat.

To convert a FAT32 drive to NTFS:

1. Run Command Prompt as administrator. (Type cmd into start menu search, right click and "Run As Administrator")
2. Note the drive letter. We'll use Drive E as an example.
3. In the Command Prompt window, type: CONVERT E: /FS:NTFS /NOSECURITY
4: Hit enter and wait. It will take some time, but not that long. Also, the conversion requires 23kb or so of space, so you may have to remove a tiny something from a completely full drive.


Thank you! I have plenty of free space, so that shouldn't be a problem.
By Timo Sat Aug 06, 2022 7:33 pm
HouseWithoutMouse wrote:My thinking goes like, I'll use the recommended way, so when there are problems, I will get the same problems as everyone else, and not something different that nobody else has. :) At least there's less filesystem bookkeeping overhead needed for ExFAT vs NTFS.

I think that any possible crash-related filesystem corruption can only happen during explicitly invoked save operations. Maybe excluding recording streaming audio. And if that happens, you're screwed anyway. A quite hypothetical situation. I'm not running an on-line database server on the Force's SSD or anything.


That was my thinking as well (use ExFAT, since it's the recommendation), but since there seem to be subtle differences in ExFAT formatting resulting in my Windows PC not "seeing" the file system, I'm going to try out NTFS since that doesn't seem to have those sorts of compatibility issues.

And you're right, the benefits of file system journaling for this use case are an extreme edge case, likely not saving my bacon if a save goes awry, but it can't hurt :)
By Timo Sun Aug 07, 2022 1:32 am
Just to close all of this out: I had to go into Disk Manager in Windows and assign a drive letter to the internal Force SSD drive, and then I could "see" the Force SSD file system in my Windows File Explorer.

Turns out that SSD was formatted with NTFS already, so I didn't have to do any conversion, and it had been running reliably all along, so NTFS seems to be well supported by the Force.

And I can now easily update WAV samples that are streaming from the Force SSD in Arranger Mode - I just put the Force into Computer Mode (Windows is smart enough to remember that drive letter assignment), overwrite the WAV files in the Force project directory, "eject" the Force drives from Windows (to make sure any write caches are flushed etc.), reboot the Force into Standalone Mode, and open my Force project which will now stream back those updated files!

Thank you very much everybody who chimed in to help me solve this issue, it's nice to see that there are supportive and helpful folks on the Internet, and I hope I can reciprocate one day :)
By Timo Wed Aug 10, 2022 9:01 pm
One more thing to share to close this out: I did open a Support ticket with Akai Support on July 30, and as of now, have heard nothing back. Very disappointing.

So I'm extra grateful for the forum members who helped me sort this out!
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By EnochLight Thu Aug 11, 2022 3:51 am
Timo wrote:Turns out that SSD was formatted with NTFS already, so I didn't have to do any conversion, and it had been running reliably all along, so NTFS seems to be well supported by the Force.


It is, very much so. In fact, if you’re on Windows then there is zero reasons to use ExFAT, so nothing to worry about. Glad you got things sorted - assigning a drive letter is critical to it working right. :wink: