Fostex D80 Help

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Fostex D80 Help [Unable to delete data. Error: "Over"]

Hi!

I did a quick search on the forums here regarding my question, but came up empty handed. My apologies in advance if I'm kicking a dead horse.

Anyway.

I'm sitting here in my room struggling with my D80. Last night I did a bit of live recording and used up the entirety of the harddrive space (about 59m 57s- foreshadowing a later question). Now, I desperately need to get some ideas out that've just come to me. You know how it is.

Unfortunately, my unit refuses to erase anything now that it's full, giving me an error that looks like "Over". This has happened in the past and the only solution I was able to find was reformatting the harddrive. This time around, that is not an option since I have unfinished projects sitting on the unit that I cannot afford to lose.

This is a matter of dire importance. If you have any ideas, please, share them.

Secondly, does anyone know if the fostex d80 is limited to 59m 57s of recording time? I have an 8gb drive in there (or is it 4?) and I thought I would get much more time than an hour recording. Any input is greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance!

-Adam
 
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actually, maybe there's way to mount the hd in the fostex in my pc?

anyone know of any tools that will let me read the fs from my pc?
 
Not familiar with your machine (It appears I'm not alone in that!)
I vaguely remember there was a piece of software to do what I think you are suggesting, but for the FD8, but I've no idea where i saw it.

Good Luck

Orc

PS a bigger hard drive is a must if you are going to keep the machine.
 
Well, I've solved the problem, thanks to replacing my pdf copy of the d160 with the proper d80 (that's on the fostex usa site now).

The problem was I was going "Overtime": The amount of disk space is insufficient for the amount of time indicated on the display.

Whatever that means.

Anyway, it says to Cut some data to move back the ABS END point to free up space. I guess the Erase function overwrites the data with silence rather than purging it from its memory all together, whereas Cut actually kills the data altogether. Is that right, fellas?

As for the bigger harddrive... I'm pretty sure there's an 8GB drive in there. Now, the unit says it's a VER2 when it initializes. I thought 8GB would get me more than 59m57s of recording time. Am I right in saying that? It says in the manual that a 1.3GB drive will get you 30m of recording time, so following that logic, an 8GB drive should get you about 3hrs of recording time. Should it not?

Any input is appreciated. And thanks for the replies thusfar.
 
If the d8 is anything like other Fostex machines, if you are recording it in normal mode, i.e. 16 bit, 44.1khz, then you are eating a ton of memory. Each track will take up the recording time, so if you have 4 tracks that are 3 minutes long, you have eaten up 12 minutes of time. The MR-8 actually writes two different .wav files as it records, so that you can utilize the undo/redo function. I am not familiar with the d8, but I think you can assume if it has that feature, it is doing the same thing. Therefore, 4 three minute tracks are burning up 24 minutes of memory.
Another option you can look at, what types of output does it have? The MR-8 has two 1/4" stereo analog outputs, and also a usb and s/pdif. If you have those, you can transfer your unfinished work to a folder on your pc, clearing up some space on the d8 for other work, and transfer the files back when you are ready to work on them.
Check your manual. You may have other options that I didn't mention. Like Orc says, there are probably not too many d8 users on here.
Hope I was helpful, and sorry I couldn't do more.
Rokket
 
You know, there might be very few D8 users here, but it looks like i'm the only D80 user. :)

The D80 was Fostex's first rack unit, digital multitrack. Came out in '94, or '96 I think. It's the precursor to the D90. Nearly the same as the D90 and the D160 (16 track version of the D80) minus a few features.

If anyone is familiar with HD vs. recording time with these units, please, speak up!

Thanks all the same though fellas.

P.S. just for the record: http://www.thesoundgarden.co.uk/used equipment pages/fostex d80.html
 
My eyes were screwed. I didn't see the zero, sorry about that...
 
Tez,

I use a D160 with considerably larger drives so I haven't encountered your problem, however, according to a "Recording Time Calculation Chart" published by Fostex, an 8 Gbyte drive, under normal circumstances recording at 44.1 kHz/16 bit, should give you 1,510 minutes of recording time, obviously this is based on 1 track, if you have ALWAYS used 8 tracks then you are down to a total of 189 minutes.

BTW, just a couple of thoughts..........have you checked the "Disk Remain" display which should tell you both the H/drive capacity left to use and the remaining time available (in minutes). Also, and without having a D80 in front of me, I'm kind of guessing, but it almost sounds as though there is a defined "ABS end point" restricting how much recording time is available........I know the D80 and D90 had some restriction in this regard that didn't apply to the D160.

I strongly suggest to trot over here...... http://www.recordingproject.com/bbs/index.php and look for/contact the moderator "Skod" as he probably knows more than most about the "D" series machines.......in days gone by he was the guru of this forum going by the username of Skippy.

I also believe that Fostex's forums are back up and running, however I don't know that there would be sufficient depth of experience there.

:cool:
 
Ah!

Thank you muchly!

As for the disk remain idea, the D80 will only tell you how much time you have left as opposed to telling you both how much time and how much disk space is left as in the case of the D160. And alas, when the unit is freshly formatted it says 59m57s of recording time, which I've always thought was a tad low.

As for the ABS END comment: the way I understood the ABS END points to work was that they were in charge of marking the [absolute] end of a program, rather than the end of the disk. Logically, within a program the ABS END will increase with the more recording time, and decrease with the deletion of data. My earlier problem was that if the ABS END of one program reaches the end of the disk then there isn't any room on the machine to do anything else, e.g., copy, move, paste, since those steps require "working" room.

Of course this could be completely out in left field.

The only thing I can think of is that the person who sold me this unit lied about the capacity harddrive which he put in it specifically for the sale. I'm having a bit of trouble finding out the size via visual inspection as this is one of those old Quantum Fireball 3.5 TM disks, and fails to give the size anywhere on its chassis. Or, it is possible that this version 2 (?) of the unit doesn't support anything larger than whatever disk size it would be to equal ~1hr of recording time.

I will have to try a bit harder to figure out the disk size.

In the meantime, I will make my way over to that forum and search out Skod.

Thanks for the help!
 
Tez...D80 advice.

Tez ,I've just joined the forum and have encountered a new problem with the D80 but that's another story.
I've been working with the D80 for 10 years in my own pro studio and found the machines excellent especially for editing (I have 3).I came across your problem a few years ago.
1.Make sure your machine is version 2 (on start up the display will flash version 2).If not,then if you contact Fostex, they will send you the software chip free of charge when you send them your chip(located beneath the top panel which screws off on top of the D80).
2.Disk space and recording time.Assuming you have ver.2,which is what I've got,I have found that the Seagate 20Gb or 40Gb hard disk gives you 2hours 30 mins recording time.That's the maximum these machines will give in accordance with the machines software.You could put an 80Gb disk in or 100Gb but you will still get only 2hrs 30mins recording time.
I have recorded two 5 minute songs on 5 programmes on the D80 and still had space left.
Any more info you want contact me.
Tweet.
 
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