External USB problems

[Jezz006]

When transferring recordings to six of my Seagate 2 TB external USB Hard Drives everything works fine.

However on two new drives where I transferred a lot of recordings using my PC Desktop I'm experiencing corrupted file recordings and trying to access some folders causes the TV picture to dissapear and I have to reboot the Beyonwiz.
Accessing these folders on the PC is no problem.

The usual format of the recordings from the Beyonwiz DPP2 is for example "06/04/14 19:32 [59min] Ice Age Giants" , but when I try to copy to one of these drives it is unable to do so but leaves a file in the format of, "Ice Age Giants_Mar.30.2014_19.32.tvwiz" on the drive which does not work.
On the other after a Beyonwiz reformat the file copies OK but with the ".tvwiz" at the end of the file name.

Transferring the original file to one of the other USB drives works fine, and leaves the original file name intact.

I've tried reformatting the drives on both the Beyonwiz and using my PC, but only some of the files work and the
corrupt copying continues. When I try a mass copy of the files the computer refuses to do it, and I've tried it
folder by folder, leaving out the files that it will not copy.

Any suggestions on the cause of this and how to rescue/copy the files on this drive and get the drives to operate properly?

[IanSav]

Hi Jezz006,

How Best To Post About Problems With Your Beyonwiz...

What version of firmware is your Beyonwiz using?
Have you checked the hard disk for errors (on a PC)?
What is the format being used on the drives that work and don't work?
How are you transferring the files?
Have you re-indexed the files on the Beyonwiz?

Regards,
Ian.

[Jezz006]

Thanks for your reply Ian.

I realised after I sent in my post that I should have provided more info. on the situation.

My Beyonwiz is a DP-P2 2 Terabyte Hard drive running BETA_DPP2_Firmware_01Jun2012_ver_0107351_1.wrp.

I've been asked by the computer to run a "Scan and Fix" on one of the drives I'm having difficulty with which I have done.I even "scanned for and attempt recovery of bad sectors" which ran for almost a day.After the scan it gave it the OK." However after trying to populate this drive again after a reformat the same problems arose and the PC asked for a rescan.

I've been using the format provided by the Beyonwiz and that of my PC running Windows 7 64 bit which is NTFS.
I also have a Beyonwiz DP-P2 500GB recorder running the DPP2_Firmware_30Nov2010_ver_0107350.wrp which I used initially in this attempt to reorganise my library of recordings.
I have used the same process on all my external hard drives most of which work OK.

The file transfers have been from the USB drives to computer and back to USB drives in order to reorganise my collection and free up space on the drives. Initially I copied then to my PC and then copied them to the new drive.
At present I'm trying to transfer/rescue the recordings to a new Seagate USB 2Tb External Hardrive, doing it one folder at a time and creating the folder names on the the new drive instead of transferring them.

Once back on the USB drive I tend to leave the file index the same unless I need to add a new classification.

[IanSav]

Hi Jezz006,

The Beyonwiz is not capable of writing to NTFS drives. You will need to transfer the recordings to a PC and then use the PC to archive the recordings to the external disks. The Beyonwiz should be quite happy reading content from the NTFS formatted drives.

Regards,
Ian.

[Jezz006]

Hi Ian,

Thanks for your reply.

I'm a little confused with the issue of formatting as six of my external drives are happy being written to by the Beyonwiz.

Should I consistently use the format USB option in the Beyonwiz rather than the PC option, which gives the choice of either NTFS of exFAT?

I had read on the forums that the Beyonwiz does not format drives over 500gb but the DP-P2
seems quite happy to do this.

[IanSav]

Hi Jezz006,

When I format an external drive I use a program called "fat32format".

Does the problematic drive get its power from a plug pack or does its power come from the Beyonwiz? If it is the latter then can the drive be connected to its own power supply? If it doesn't have its own power supply then can you try inserting a powered USB hub between the Beyonwiz and the hard drive. Does that make any difference?

If all the problems exist around a single external drive then you need to explore if that drive is having issues. Perhaps try running the manuafturer's diagnostics against the drive. (Warning, the diagnostics are usually destructive to all data on the drive.)

Regards,
Ian.

[Jezz006]

Hi Ian,

On checking, all my external drives are formatted as Fat32 and all are connected to their own power supply.
Sorry about that I assumed the PC NTFS option was the default one.

I installed 'fat32format" and by default it chooses 32768 as the Allocation Unit size.

Is this Ok for the BW or should I choose one of the other sizes ranging from 512 to 65536?

I've tried copying the files from the troublesome drive to another new one, and rewriting all my index folder names,but though most of the folders and files are working Ok there is still some folders that when clicked cause the screen to become garbled and the BW has to be turned off and on restart asks for a HDD check.

I'm beginning to suspect, as you say, that there is a problem with possibly both of the new drives I bought,but will try to reformat them using fat32format and run the Seagate diagnostic full test on them as the quick csan showed no faults.

[Jezz006]

Just to round off this post, the two hard drives I recently purchased both failed Seagate's Sea Tools, short and long generic tests, and have been returned to the store where I purchased them without any dramas.

Just to clear up what I need to do when I get my next 2TB external drive...

I format it on the computer with Fat32Format and use the default Allocation Unit Size of 32768 ?

Do I need to then format the drive on the BW as well before I use it?

Yours in Appreciation,

Jezz006

[IanSav]

Hi Jezz006,

Just the one format with Fat32Format should be all you need.

It is unfortunate that Seagate made you perform the final quality assurance of their product using your live data.

Regards,
Ian.

[prl]

And yes, use the default 32kB allocation size.

[Jezz006]

Hi Ian,

Thanks for all your assistance.

I copied all the BW recordings onto spare spaces on my other hard drives before running the tests,
so hopefully they'll survive the copying saga they have been through and be enjoying a new home soon.

[IanSav]

Hi,

Sorry I missed the allocation question. Thanks Peter.

Regards,
Ian.

[Jezz006]

I'm experiencing more problems in another attempt to reorganise my recordings on 12 USB external harddrives.

Some of the transferred files and folders suddenly become invisible through the Wiz, and on looking at the contents on the PC, Windows detects file system errors and wants to run Check Disk.
I've attatched the report from one of my drives which after the repair is done leaves the rescued data in system folders entitled "FOUND.000","001","002" with some 17,000 files of 32mb, numbered from FILE0000.CHK onwards.

Does anyone know how I might reform the original recordings from this truncation process, and why the first allocation unit in so many ,but not all, recordings is seen as not valid?

This has now occured three times and I'm wondering if I'm better off converting my remaining good recordings to the TS format for storage and perhaps avoiding the same problem?

Yours in Appreciation,

[Gully]

Doesn't answer the question but it sounds like it might be a hardware problem. At least try a full reformat when you can.

[simoncasey]

I'm experiencing more problems in another attempt to reorganise my recordings on 12 USB external harddrives.

Some of the transferred files and folders suddenly become invisible through the Wiz, and on looking at the contents on the PC, Windows detects file system errors and wants to run Check Disk.
I've attatched the report from one of my drives which after the repair is done leaves the rescued data in system folders entitled "FOUND.000","001","002" with some 17,000 files of 32mb, numbered from FILE0000.CHK onwards.

Does anyone know how I might reform the original recordings from this truncation process, and why the first allocation unit in so many ,but not all, recordings is seen as not valid?

This has now occured three times and I'm wondering if I'm better off converting my remaining good recordings to the TS format for storage and perhaps avoiding the same problem?

Yours in Appreciation,

There's a message that you have I sufficient hard drive space to recover the files. It would be worth copying off any files that are ok to free up space and then trying again.

And yes, it's worth transferring them into ts files so that are accessible in all devices.