Zip Drive Hell

S

Sir_Matthew

Member
Ffffffffffuuuuuuuuck. Fuck.

I have (had?) a song backed up as an Archive from my VS-880 onto 3 250MB ZIP disks. It has extracted back onto the IDE drive with no problem many times before.

Today, I'm extracting it and it goes through disk 1 & disk 2 with no problem. Kicks the disks right out like it should. When i put in disk 3, it gets as far as 97% loaded, then stops. The screen reads "Complete", but the song isn't on the IDE. No error message at all, though. And the ZIP drive doesn't kick the disk out, nor respond when I hit the button. I have to turn it off and then on again to remove the disk.

I theorized that the drive could be faulty, and that I didn't just lose this fucking track. But I Archived and Extracted another song without any problem (with multiple disks), and it seems I'm screwed.

This is a last resort: Is there anyone who has encountered this situation and somehow got the disk to work? I'm desperate here. If not, I'll have to re-take this whole damn song, which I paid many good studio musicians to back me up on.

Please, someone tell me I'm not screwed. (though I think I probably am)
 
Quick update:

I called Roland and they seemed to think re-initializing my IDE drive would be a good idea. I haven't done that since buying it a couple of years ago, so I figure that's a good idea. First, I have to back up the songs that are on it currently.

After backing one of them up, I load the disk in to make sure it's listed on there. It is, but the disk won't kick out. I'm thinking this is a problem with the ZIP drive, which would be preferable. A new ZIP drive is a whole lot cheaper than the time and anguish it would take to re-record the damn thing.

But I have an online chat with one of Iomega's techies, & he doesn't know shit. He wants me to try it out on another computer. Well, I don't have a computer with a SCSI connection. He says to try it somewhere on my street. Okay, whatever. Then he says maybe it's the power supply. I don't think this is going to help.

So I'm probably going to buy a new ZIP drive (had it for 2 years of heavy use, so it's possible I killed it) and see what happens. If it gives me the same problem, I'll just sell it and maybe lose thirty bucks. Which is what a new power supply will cost, by the way. On the Iomega site, anyway. I could probably get one cheaper if I looked for a while, but honestly I doubt that's the problem.

Lemme know if there are any brainstorms. I'll give you an update when I have it, in case it happens to you.
 
good luck. It's tough to trouble shoot that kind of stuff if you dont have different devices to try them out on.
 
Update

Well, replaced the ZIP drive. That's not it.

I also reinitialized the IDE drive. That's not it, either.

I would be inclined to think I have a corrupt disk on my hands, except that the ZIP disk still sticks in the drive when I perform the following sequence:

1. Go to Archive mode.
2. Hit Extract.
3. View the song name on the disk.
4. Go back to the main screen (by hitting PLAY/DISPLAY).

I'm gonna call Roland again on Monday & see if they have any other bright ideas.

I heard somewhere that there are services that can recover data from corrupted disks. Is there any way to do that with these files? I don't even know what kind of file it is, so I don't know how I would begin describing it to someone. I should probably ask the Roland guy that.

Any ideas in the meantime?
 
'nother update...

Called Roland. Found out that I have the oldest version of the VS operating system, version 1.012, which is apparently quite buggy. I was told to download the new OS, since the old one is difficult to troubleshoot.

But being the dinosaur that I am, I have no MIDI interface, USB port, or SCSI port on my PC. Today I ordered a MIDI interface that can hook into the serial port on my sound card, so when that arrives, I'll post another update.

I'm just documenting all of this here in case any of you have old-ass crap like mine. Word to the wise from the guy at Roland: if you have any OS version older than 3.206, you'd best update.
 
Yes, you do have a midi port on your computer, it's the joystick connector that's on your soundcard. You can buy a midi/joystick cable at all major music stores. The 72 pin male connector plugs into the joystick connector and the 'midi-out' plugs into the 'midi-in' on your recorder. You may have to shut down your computer first, connect the midi/joystick and than re-boot, this allows your computer to 'find' the connector.
 
D'oh! They've already shipped my order for a serial port-MIDI interface. Though I could send it back. I was going by Sam Ash to get a MIDI cable on my way home anyway, I'll look for the serial/MIDI cable.

Thanks, you may have saved me some money!
 
Well, I got the cable 72fender mentioned. Hooked it up to the serial (joystick) port of my soundcard.

I turned the VS-880 on first, holding down the CH EDIT and STATUS buttons so as to put it in the right mode. Booted up the computer, and it makes no mention of anything new.

So then went ahead and tried sending the MIDI files I downloaded from the Roland site, with the UpdSMF program they had on the site. It only gives me two options for a MIDI Out Device where I can send the MIDI files:

1. Creative Music Synth (220)

2. SB16 MIDI Out (330)

I tried sending through both, and got no error messages, but the VS-880 never did anything. It's supposed to change messages and ask if I want to update, but it never did.

I think it's not detecting the MIDI interface or something. But I'm not sure how to rectify that. I'm calling Roland back on Monday.

Any ideas in the meantime?
 
Connect the serial adapter to your computer first, boot-up computer. Make sure that the 5 pin male 'midi-out' is connected to the female 'midi-in' on the recorder and the 5 pin 'midi-in' is connected to 'midi-out'. Now turn on the recorder and hopefully they'll 'see' each other.

One thing, I have VS-880EX but the midi connections are the same. I use VS Logic and the midi connection is how the recorder and computer sync.
 
Wellsirs, my pals at Roland were kind enough to point out that the MIDI OUT cable needs to be attached to the MIDI IN on my VS-880, not the other way around. Duh! Dur! Duhhh!!! (slap, slap) URNNTT!!

So I got the new OS, happy-joy-joy. But the same problem I've documented above is occurring when I try to load my big 3-disc song. Except this time I get an error message: "Err Can't Communicate". Well, at least it's admitting it now.

I'm calling Roland again tonight to say, "Okay, now what?" I'll keep you posted.
 
Logically speaking if it loads 2 disks, and doesn't crap out, it's likely the media itself.
Get a blank ZIP disk, record some audio, and save to it ZIP.
If it works, than the drive is OK. Still, better to go with CDR.
Maybe put the ZIP to a computer and run disk doctor on the offending ZIP disk.
ZIP drives have an affliction called "the click of death", is it clicking?
When it happens it eats the disks.:rolleyes:
 
Talked to Roland again. Their official diagnosis is that the disk is not totally corrupt, but has a small corrupt sector that's preventing it from loading the entire song.

So I'm sending this thing to Iomega's data recovery service for a free estimate on whether or not it's rescuable. We shall see.

No "click of death", thank God.
 
Likely
IOmega will look at whats on the disk and go
WTF is this?
Like someone said, good luck.
Shoulda just put the thing on a PC, and run disk doctor; it does that, recover data from a bad sector, and move it to a good one.
Rescued many a floppy that way.
 
I would've, except that my computer doesn't have a SCSI card to hook the ZIP drive into. It'll be interesting to see what incredulous reply I get from Iomega.
 
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