The DijonStock Digital Home Recording Support Forum

If you spend $200 of your money just because you think it's a good deal, and you wind up with a piece of junk, how would that make you feel? You'd have a very nice boat anchor. As Robbie said, there's still hope for your G, but until you've explored every option, I'd keep trying and keep saving up for something you know and enjoy using.

When someone keeps dropping their price, that's a red flag. Sounds like the reason this person never learned it was it wasn't working properly. Small hard drive that you have to spend money to replace . . . how much will a new one cost? CD burner not working properly? How much will that cost to replace? Old and antequated machine that has to be upwards of 10 years old? How much will that cost to replace?

It just seems to me, you're wanting something quick and for me making rash decisions wind up costing me more than their worth. I personally wouldn't walk away from this Roland deal, I WOULD RUN AWAY.

Save your money and get another G or a deal on a 1600.

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GSMUSIC: Hey RZ, Im not no upper class american, the gear I own is what I have special to me. My car sucks, my house sucks, my nieghborhood sucks. Does yours RZ? Does it?

rz-land

Hi Byron, all the bolded parts of your post ring true with this purchase. I just got through reading the main parts of the manual, and the compression is only an effect...

I guess if I can't get my G working, this machine could be a "stop-the-bleeding" type purchase, to keep me sane in other areas of my life, by letting my creative side find a home. At worst, I could attach an external drive and back up that way, ETC. I think there's still options available for this issue.

Down the road, If the right price on another G or 1600, (or even the 4416 - which I'm not familiar with) appears, I will gladly put my money to it.

As for the birthday/Xmas money...I've been spending that since last birthday/Xmas...

My wife is very understanding, and if I want something bad enough, we find ways of getting it.

Thanks for the info though...

Now lets see if I can get this G working afterall...

Doug.

OK Doug, that clears things up a bit. I'll look into it tonight.

In the meantime, can you define what "wipe the drive" is? I understood the drive has to be clean, even without any partitions. Lots of folks use "wipe" for deleting files or formatting, but not for removing partitions.

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Don't judge the coffee by its cup.
The proof of the cheese is in the eating

Hi RZ, you might be right, maybe this is worse than it sounds. The guy to me sounds like he was used to adat, old school recording, and couldn't grasp the workings of the recorder and it's 298 page manual, but you never know.

Maybe I'll hold off.

I just know that I don't see the Yamaha line, or any digital recorders that can do all that either of these do, for $225 around these parts.

Thanks, Doug.

When I decide to reinstall an operating system for a PC, I wipe the drive.
The "wipe" process writes zeros to the information that was previously on the machine, and thus, all partitions, formats, operating systems, everything is gone.

I would then FDisk to create the partition, and Format using the OS software (XP formats before installing itself...)

In preping for the G, I've only wiped it. Nothing else...

Unless I haven't done enough going forward (fdisk or format) to make this drive ready for the G, I'm not sure what else needs to be done. I would think that a drive cannot be formatted without first partitioning it, and FDisk is the program which creates the partition.

I was of the understanding that this is not supposed to have a partition.

Maybe this is where I'm making a mistake?

Thanks, Doug.

Hiya Doug, the routine should be pretty straight forward.

It's essential that the drive is only low level formatted. This could be the problem, as "wiping" means "back" from a situation and "low level formatting" means "forth" to a situation. However I have the impression from your posts that you know what you're doing.

The aw16prog.bin file is the file you need. I don't know why I put that up there twice. Burn that file to CD. Turn the G on, insert the disc. Turn the G off. Then, while holding down the SONG and REMOTE buttons at the same time, turn on your G. Release the buttons when the upgrade begins. Follow the prompts.

Tell us what happens when you follow this procedure?

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Don't judge the coffee by its cup.
The proof of the cheese is in the eating

I'm glad I did'nt buy a Roland VS anything .....my friend bought different versions of the series
I see their prices going down and down......the little I've recorded on the G I enjoy it.........

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nothing leads to nothing...........Raven Garcia

If you wish to avoid seeing a fool you must first break your mirror".............Francois Rabelais

O.K., Robbie, I tried it again, with the same result.

I think I'm going to re-wipe and then FDISK, to see if that can fix this mess...I'm really missing not using this thing.

I'll report back afterwards...Doug.

Doug, you might need a low level format tool by the manufacturer to get an actual low level format situation. You can probably find that on their web site.

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Don't judge the coffee by its cup.
The proof of the cheese is in the eating

Hi Robbie, the software I used last to wipe it was from the manufacturer.

It stated this:

Low-level format utility (Use option: Erase Disk).

- Note: this utility overwrites customer data to allow repair of bad sectors.

I tried Erase Disk (no bad sectors), and tried the OS install, but had the same results...

I just tried FDisk on it's owm. Same result.

I'm going to try the format option from the win98 startup disk next...

Doug.

Thanks Doug, this was what I was looking for. At least we know that the hard disc and the state it's in is not the problem.

I assume you removed and reinstalled it a couple of times? This would be my next step as contacts might get dirty, which is solved by a few disconnect/reconnect actions.

How long has your G been completely disconnected from power? Make sure your cold boot really is a cold boot, as in the end the G is nothing more than a microprocessor system with peripherals, with all kinds of register settings. And it will behave as such. Disconnect it from power and leave it for a few hours to make completely sure.

If you happen to know people in the neighbourhood that have a G, you could swap HD's and see whether or not the problem moves along with it.

I'll report back if anything more pops up in my mind.

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Don't judge the coffee by its cup.
The proof of the cheese is in the eating

Bad couple of weeks for hard drives.

An older computer I used for storing my G projects (they're backed up) has died, or rather the 160g crashed, so I'm back to a 40 in it.

The 1997 laptop I've been using to wipe the drive for the G has stopped helping me, as the floppy finally crapped out.

I'm going to give this a rest for now.

I'll have to get a 2.5" hard drive enclosure off Ebay, in order to try anything else, as far as wiping/formatting.

The last thing I successfully did was try the drive with the fdisk AND format. Surprisingly, the OS did not resist being applied to it. BUT...I still got the same result.

My last move was to once more try the low-level format from the manufacturers software, but that's when the floppy stopped reading. I would have tried creating a cd but the cdrom in that laptop is fussier than most on any given day...

As for your comments Robbie, I've removed and reinstalled the hdd about 15 times over the last week, and in doing so, the G has been left unplugged for long periods of time. In fact, the only time I've been plugging it in is to try and reapply the OS, and that was a 2 sec attempt, before realizing my problem still existed.

I know of no one else with a G (except for you guys here), although that was a great idea.

I wonder if somewhere along the way, in trying to apply the OS, I messed up the processor/motherboard???

I've been careful, but as I said, I was inside of it like 15 times in the last couple of weeks. Also, it's unlikely, but the 40g that crashed might have done some damage? This is where things went wrong, and the drive DID crash. Testing software on it proved that it had many errors.

I'll check in on this thread daily in case anything else comes to mind, but for now, I'm going to go on Ebay and get a HDD enclosure to assist in this situation...

Thanks to all for your help...

Doug.

OK so the contacts and the microprocessor story can't be the problem either.

I can't believe that you damaged the motherboard just by installing an OS. Maybe by removing the HD (or reinstalling it).

You could try to find a used Travelstar on ebay or something like that. You can buy them new for around 50 euro's here. Obviously it depends on how much money you'd like to spend and if in the end it does appear not to be part of the problem you end up having an unused hard drive.

If I have another brainwave I'll put it here. They're rare, though

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Don't judge the coffee by its cup.
The proof of the cheese is in the eating

I'll scout another drive, although this one shows no errors when it is tested. If I can find one for the right price, it won't hurt to have a backup...I bought the enclosure on Ebay for $8 Canadian. I should expect it within the week hopefully.

I'll keep in touch as well...thanks again.

Doug.

I just "won" one on marktplaats.nl, a dutch ebay-like site. A 20 GB Hitachi Travelstar for 10 euro's (about 13.50 in canadian dollars). It probably has partitions on it, so using my spare G I should be in the same situation as you are. I'll try to put it in the G and get it to work. I'll post the procedure that I follow here. IF I get it to work...

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Don't judge the coffee by its cup.
The proof of the cheese is in the eating

may the force be with you

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Byron

I'll be fierce whether it's force or farce...

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Don't judge the coffee by its cup.
The proof of the cheese is in the eating

who would have thought this thread would generate such a shelf life...


is there some kind of newbie award waiting?

second the motion...


tito's...

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it's funny, the older you get, the older you wanna be

and the nice thing is this thread never turned into a cheesy discussion . . . .


until now.

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GSMUSIC: Hey RZ, Im not no upper class american, the gear I own is what I have special to me. My car sucks, my house sucks, my nieghborhood sucks. Does yours RZ? Does it?

rz-land

Hi all,

Robbie, I appreciate your troubles. It certainly isn't necessary, but now I'm curious to see what the result is.
Many thanks for this, and hopefully the new (used) drive will be a sound backup when it's all said and done.

I'll be lurking...Thanks, Doug.