Save & Eject issues

[ashok77]

Hello everyone,

Long time reader, first time poster so sorry for the wordy post (and hopefully it's in the right section) but I'm just trying to get this sorted out.

I recently purchased a 20gb phatnoise system from a local vw dealer where it had been installed in a floor model and then taken out before the car was sold (read: got a good deal). After I got it home and set it up I tested it out in the jetta and it worked perfectly. That was with just a couple of albums that I dumped on the dms.

Now I want to load up the 20gb dms but the problem I"m running into is halfway through PMM (2.3) tells me it can't find a file and the whole process crashes. Sometimes it tells me that "an unamed file has not been found" I've run the database doctor, cleaned and wiped the dms, run dms doctor, restarted the computer, reinstalled PPM and checked all the files in various orders and still can't dump 20gb at once. The only way I can do it is 2-3 gb at a time. Just wondering if anyone has run into this problem and know what's happening?

Something else that came up, which may be related is that when I plugged in the 2.0 cradle XP said "hi-speed device plugged into non-high-speed usb hub". I have usb 2.0 on the mobo and device manager shows that I have an enhanced (2.0) controller installed and the latest drivers are there. I thought originally that maybe 2.0 wasn't set up and and the slow transfer caused the problems but my 2.0 brother printer plugs in fine and USBInfo shows when the dms is plugged in it is a 2.0 port (I've also only plugged the cradle into the 4 usb ports on the back that are built into the mobo). If I dump roughly 700mb to the dms it takes about a minute, does that sound like to 2.0. I figured at 480mbps --> 60MB/s 700MB should load in 12 or so seconds. I might go and buy a cheap pci card if I'm not really getting 2.0 speeds.

I really would like to do the dms hack but I don't want to bump up the hard drive and still have to load all my music piece-meal.

If anyone has any suggestions or ideas please let me know. Thanks in advance.

[judb]

Do you have XP with Service Pack 2 loaded on it?

Why don't you try downloading the newer release of PMM and see if it works any better?  3.94 or something like that is the newest release.

I've seen PMM have issues with some files that have weird id3 tag format stuff.. like files with embeded album art in the ID3v2 tags for instance.  

[ashok77]

I do have xp with sp2 and have tried PMM 3.94 but I still get the same problem. Sorry about that, I should have mentioned it.

I actually don't think I have any album art, or at least iTunes isn't showing any for all the albums but like you say it might be in the ID3v2 tags somewhere. I use MP3 Tag Tools if that makes a difference . I didn't think about this since the PPM will tell me a file is not found when I load all the music at once but if I load just a few albums including the supposedly missing file it loads fine.

I'll look into the embedded album art and see if that is giving me grief.

Thanks

[sbingner]

I've seen stuff like that with the new PMM, try Phatnoise Music Manager instead.   You can have both installed at the same time, just make sure only one is open at a time.

[ashok77]

Okay, here's what I've done

-Shutdown adware and virus scanners (all the real time protection stuff, was shutoff in prior attempts as well)
-Removed all cover art
-cleaned up all file names (both id3v1.1 and id3v2.x)
-defragged the hard drive where all the music resides

Media Manager - tried loading 10 Gb of music, could not find one file with ~100 files left to copy over to the dms and process cancelled

Music Manager - tried loading roughly the same 10 Gb of music, approximately half way through a file could not be found and process died

In both cases the green light stays stays lit up on the cradle after the program closes and says it's been ejected. Even windows can't eject it.

Maybe 2-3 GB at a time will have to do.

On another note, will hacking the dms cause any irreversible damage to the hardware/system if something were to go wrong? I was thinking of getting another small dms cartrige so that I could revert back to the original if something went wrong.

thanks again for your help

[ashok77]

oh yeah a couple more things.

-database doctor was run prior to each attempt
-after music/media manager crashes and I finally get the dms out of the cradle, when I re-insert it does not show the playlist/disc that was made but it does show that ~10 GB has been used on the dms. I then have to clean and wipe the dms and then start over

[markbowen]

Hmm, lots of possibilities of what could be wrong.

One thing right off the bat, you wrote that you tried loading music using Music Manager and Media Manager.  If I am not mistaken, those programs use different database formats, so you cannot switch between one and the other using the same DMS.  If you do, you will have problems.  (I recommend sticking with Music Manager 2.3.  It does not have some of the features of Media Manager, but I think it is more stable and easier to use.)

For the USB connection, 700MB in a minute is definitely closer to 1.1 speed than 2.0.  Go into your computer's BIOS and make sure that High Speed USB is enabled.  In many cases, the BIOS defaults to Full Speed, which is 1.1 spec.  Also, if you have a motherboard using a less than ideal USB chipset (such as Ali), you could experience problems.  If you decide to get a USB card, make sure it uses either the NEC or VIA chipset.

You should then run a scandisk on all your hard disks, choosing the options to automatically fix file errors.  Also, before you shut down your anti-virus programs, run a full virus scan.

Even though you have tried it already, you might want to wipe the DMS again, and even consider reformatting the partitions (**caution** - make sure you know what you are doing).

If you take care of all of the above, then try to transfer again, keeping in mind that ideally you should not have any other windows open or programs running when doing the save/eject procedure.  If you still have the same problems, post again!!

As far as the hack goes, it does not cause any "damage" to the system.  An original DMS will continue to work in a hacked system.

[ashok77]

thanks for chiming in markbowen,

I have removed Media Manager and kept Music Mgr 2.3 and wiped the dms again. Tonight I will try again with absolutely everthing shut down except PMM and let you know.

Wtih regards to the USB speed, all bios setting are correct and the latest drivers have been installed. My mobo is a Asus P4P800SE, I think that has the intel chipset for usb. I'm actually thinking it should be okay since it is 700Mb made up of 140 files, give or take. I know usb should be quite fast if it is one 700MB file but with multiple files i don't think it ever really reaches it's peak performace. Maybe the limitation is the dms hard drive speed. I picked up the d-link dub-a2 a few days ago and it has the Via chipset I believe so I may throw it in for kicks since it was pretty cheap.

[ashok77]

just to keep everyone updated one other thing I will try at the suggestion of a friend is to move 10+ gigs over to my second hard drive. He thinks that maybe since PMM can't find the file it could be my harddrive having issues seeking. I'll give that a shot too.

[sbingner]

Okay, here's what I've done
On another note, will hacking the dms cause any irreversible damage to the hardware/system if something were to go wrong? I was thinking of getting another small dms cartrige so that I could revert back to the original if something went wrong.

thanks again for your help

The hack process is designed so that the system is bootable at every step, even if the hack crashes before completing.  There is, however one step that would require you to corrupt your ramdisk.sig file if it crashes on that step (changes failure to return 0 instead of -1, changes the check to pass on 0 instead of 1, then changes a valid response to return 0 instead of 1; so if it fails before the valid return code is changed it will need to fail the ramdisk.sig check to boot).  In any case nothing it does can cause permanent damage.

[ashok77]

hello all,

well I threw the dlink usb card in and sure enough everthing worked.  I tried dumping 10 gigs from a different drive to see if my original drive was causing the problems and it worked. Tried the orginal drive with the same 10 gigs and it worked too. Tonight I'll try doing one dump of 20 gigs and see if I run into any problems. Hopefully not and if so thanks to everyone to offered some advice. I'm looking forward to picking up a 100gb drive this weekend and doing the hack so you may here from me again!

thanks.

[markbowen]

Interesting.  I've had several Asus Intel-based boards.  They are generally quite good, but I have found the USB performance always seems slower and much more finicky than on my MSI and DFI AMD-based boards.  I don't know if that is down to the Intel USB chipset or the Asus BIOS.  Anyway, glad you solved your problem!