File Name Errors With Zip Disk

Not sure if this has been asked before...it was hard to think of how to search for it by description.

Basically, I have an internal zip drive on my MPC2000XL. I also have a USB ZIP drive that I used to back up the contents of these disks on my Mac.

After backing up some of these files, I noticed that when I try to load them off of the ZIP drive in the MPC, there are @ signs at the ends of the file names, and the machine cannot locate the file. It can't delete it either.

I'm filling up my disks rather quickly these days and want to back them up again, but do not want to run into this issue again and lose all of the beats I've worked on. I'm even afraid if I plug the ZIP drive in my computer and even just open the disk, I may run into issues using it in my MPC afterwards. Don't want to risk it.

Is there anyone familiar with this issue who can share some advice?

two things could be the problem:
1) filenames greater than 8 characters. if any of your filenames in the mpc are longer than 8chars, you can consider them gone. once the computer tries to make sense of all those files that are incompatible, it will just corrupt them.
2) macs. i never found a useful solution using my mpc disks with os x. i eventually installed windows xp via virtual box (free) and i only connect my mpc media to pc's. macs leave a lot of 'hidden' files that can mess with the mpc.

good luck.

I think it was Lamp that pointed out CK Rename in a thread a while back. It's good for batch re-naming of files. You can highlight the characters you want to remove from the file names and is real handy if you have to do like 50-100 files at once.

http://www.softpedia.com/get/System/Fil ... name.shtml

Windows only.

MPC Editor (paid) will automatically assign 8 character names, but the names will be like "2hjkx#&" and you'll have to rely on your PGM titles and maybe using the same kinds of sounds on the same pads to know if things are kicks, snares and so on. I always do 4 kicks, clap, 2 snares ,clap, OH, CH, OH, CH, then 4 perc or one shot sample sounds. Outside of my XL I use more descriptive titles like GB_BD_01 and so on.

Sounds like the hidden files that the Mac creates are causing problems.

I think I have seen some sort of script that you can run, before removing the disk from the Mac, that is supposed to delete the hidden files.

Maybe you could use a separate Zip disk for transfers, only use the 'transfer' disk for moving files between the MPC and the Mac, and never put your 'MPC' disks into the Mac.

Here's the Terminal command on OS X to see hidden files and also the command to re-hide them. But personally I just avoid the headaches and use Windows for MPC stuff. And thankfully I have a CF in my XL now.

http://www.mikesel.info/show-hidden-fil ... 10-7-lion/

SimonInAustralia wrote:Sounds like the hidden files that the Mac creates are causing problems.

I think I have seen some sort of script that you can run, before removing the disk from the Mac, that is supposed to delete the hidden files.

believe it was called 'clean up smb mess' and it never worked for me...i still got the errors.

Metatron72 wrote:I think it was Lamp that pointed out CK Rename in a thread a while back. It's good for batch re-naming of files. You can highlight the characters you want to remove from the file names and is real handy if you have to do like 50-100 files at once.

http://www.softpedia.com/get/System/Fil ... name.shtml

Windows only.

this might be handy but the problem usually originates on the mpc - a lot of the default names it suggests are longer than 8 chars.

"Maybe you could use a separate Zip disk for transfers, only use the 'transfer' disk for moving files between the MPC and the Mac, and never put your 'MPC' disks into the Mac."

This might be the most practical low-risk solution. However I'd still wind up having to rename a lot of the files to something under 8 characters. There are a decent amount that have about 9 or 10.

I'm going to try using a separate disk and using one of the terminal command to reveal the hidden files so I can delete them from the disk before putting it back in the MPC.

I'll come back and let yous know what happens.

Thanks

the 8 character thing will always screw you - hidden files or not.