Problems working with secondary hardrive.

J

Jawombkamagubi

New member
My DAWs are installed on drive c and I have cut and pasted all of my wave files and various tracks onto another hard drive (e). When I was importing my files and tracks from drive c, I had no problems, but now when I import from e, I'm getting pop's and clicks and stuttering. I'm thinking that my problem is in how the file directories in my DAWs are configured, but I'm not sure. If so, I have no clue as to how to reconfigure them without throwing my setup out of whack. If anyone has any suggestions or insight, please impart to me some information-it would be greatly appreciated-thank you. I'm using Reaper and Studio One.
 
Copy and pasted wav files? You just need to save your whole project folders to the secondary drive. The project folder contains the wav files. Copy and pasting the audio files to a different drive, will not do anything.
 
Much DAW software, when first installed, looks for the largest drive and asks if you wish to use it to store project files. I know AAuditon does, not sure about Reaper but I bet it can be "told" to.

Might be as well to uninstall Reaper now that you have a second drive and then see what happens on the re install.
Actually a "Restore" might be the better option.

Dave.
 
In response to jimmys69, I created the project initially by importing the wave files from my secondary drive-that seems to be where the problem lies. I copied the same files from e (secondary) to c (primary) and then imported them from c to my DAW. After that, there was no problem, but, I want to keep my wave files on drive e to maximize the storage capacity on drive c. In response to ecc83, are you referring to a "system restore", because, if you are, I set my restore date about a month ago. That would erase a lot of work and I'm not really comfortable with that. When I installed Reaper, the secondary drive was extant, so, I can't see how that could help? Do you know how I can "tell" Reaper to direct to the secondary drive-I've consulted the manual, but can't find anything to go on? I've never had this problem before-I used to dump files on an external drive and go back and forth with all my DAWs-I dunno? I'm having a problem with Acid, too. If you have any suggestions-much obliged-thank you both.
 
Jawombkamagubi said:
My DAWs are installed on drive c and I have cut and pasted all of my wave files and various tracks onto another hard drive (e). When I was importing my files and tracks from drive c, I had no problems, but now when I import from e, I'm getting pop's and clicks and stuttering. .
Click to expand...

I'm guessing that E drive is an external drive?

Maybe it's just not up to the task of reading all that audio data at speed.
What kind of drive is it?
 
Jawombkamagubi said:
Its a Maxtor: 8 Mb cache; 7200 rps; 250 Gb storage; internal IDE.
Click to expand...

Ooo! Tis an oldie! Still it will serve, IF it is in good condition an old IDE drive might not be. (of course it might be New Old Stock, in which case forget that).

"Restore" does not remove any files*. That internal drive should be fat enough in any case, data is actually read into memory (this is what I have read, seems logical?) and the drive simple "tops up" the memory as data is read out. How much memory do you in fact have? I am guessing from the IDE drive that is a fairly old, XP PC? If so and you have less than 4G of ram get some if you can it is pretty cheap at the moment. Peeps will tell you, quite rightly, that XP 32bit cannot use more than a smell over 3G of ram but most often you have just two slots and it is best (again, I read!) to have balanced amounts, i.e. 2x 2G.

*Tho' you should keep your work backed up anyway. Some say "One on the spare drive, one with the lawyer, one in the Cloud and one with the first wife!"

Dave.
 
Yeah-I defragment about once a week, so I'm cool on that. I have copied the wav files back to drive c, but I want to keep all (or most) of my audio files on drive e because I have a lot of apps running on c-Plus, c is only 80 gbs. When I copied them back the problem with my DAWs ceased, still, I'd like to figure out how to keep my files exclusively on e with no hassles. So, I dunno?-Thanx.
 
Yeah, you pretty much figured my system out: 32 bit Windows XP Pro, 2.8 P4; 4 gb RAM; drive c (80 gb); drive e (250gb). System runs pretty good (knock on wood-or, plastic) for an oldie-I like it. I'm thinking that what I can do, for now, is just cut and paste my project files back to drive e when I've mastered the particular song or whatever I'm working on. I would appreciate any more insight-thanx,
 
Check that the hard drive and ATA controller are set for the fastest available DMA mode.

Don't recall the exact place to do that, but you go in through the device manager and look through the drive and ATA controller settings.

Also check that you have the drive connected with one of the "special" IDE cables.

If, for some unknown reason, the drive has reverted to PIO mode then you could be experiencing buffer under-runs.
 
Does anyone here think that it could be that the transfer rate on old IDEs can be as slow as 16 MB/s? The fastest those can be are 133 MB/s. I think the problem is that you're running hardware that's too old to transfer quick enough for audio. IDE is ridiculously slow compared to Firewire, and even USB2.0.
 
MrWrenchey said:
Does anyone here think that it could be that the transfer rate on old IDEs can be as slow as 16 MB/s? The fastest those can be are 133 MB/s. I think the problem is that you're running hardware that's too old to transfer quick enough for audio. IDE is ridiculously slow compared to Firewire, and even USB2.0.
Click to expand...

A 250G hard drive is less likely to be an early generation IDE drive. But it could be running sub-optimally, hence my suggestion above.

Also, the data rate was seemingly adequate from the C: drive.
 
For DMA mode: Control panel> System>Device Manager. Expand "IDE ATA/ATAP Controllers>Properties
>Advanced and then check each instance is set for DMA mode. If you are a bit nervous messing about in there set a Restore point before you start, call it something like "before I ****ed with the drives" !

BTW, does the motherboard have any SATA drive headers? If so you could get a 1TB SATA drive at some point and move everything over to it. These are so fast that there is no speed advantage in having projects on a second, physical drive, tho' you lose the security of splitting System and data (all eggs in one drive basket but again, you should have all work duped elsewhere anyway) When the time comes to upgrade the PC the drive can be moved into the new one...OR! Use the XP machine with huge drive as a server on a network (copper network that is,."We" don't do any of that wireless ***t for music!).

Re the Reaper files on the second drive. Now that you have them back on C, open a project and then save it to the second drive (NOT copy and paste it) Shut everything down, reboot then go to drive 2 and find the project..."Open With"...Reaper. Just done that, works for me. If that works you can ultimately delete the files from C.

Hmm, If you only have an 80G C drive, how big are the music files? Say a gig or so for XP, Reaper, then other trash. I am thinking that you could backup a goodly proportion of your music on a 32G usb stick, 20 quid?

Dave.
 
MrWrenchey said:
Does anyone here think that it could be that the transfer rate on old IDEs can be as slow as 16 MB/s? The fastest those can be are 133 MB/s. I think the problem is that you're running hardware that's too old to transfer quick enough for audio. IDE is ridiculously slow compared to Firewire, and even USB2.0.
Click to expand...

Don't think it matters (well, maybe if you are scoring the next Potter!) you can run tracks from a usb stick since, as I said earlier, hard drives run data into memory, buffers and all that swaddlin'.

I DID suggest that the OP get a SATA C drive but that will speed up the whole system.

Dave.
 
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