At wit's end with HxC...

Gryzor · 09:28, 10 April 13

I will start silently weeping in a few minutes.

The SD card I was using last time I used it (a few months back) didn't work now. This has happened to me several times now, with 2 different HxCs. By "didn't work" I mean "Error: Floppy Access error! [72]" when starting the manager.

I sighed, pulled out another SD from the drawer, formatted it, alright - we're in business! Today, I add some more files - fuck me, same error again. Formatted the card (full format) a few times on my PC and laptop, still 72, 72, 72. One time I even got a [76]. Right now I can browse the files on the SD from the HxC's screen, switch to B:, cat the disc, but when I try to run something... "read fail".

Please, please, anyone, any ideas? I'm so frustrated and desperate...

Bryce · 09:34, 10 April 13

Have you tried cleaning the contacts of the SD slot?

Bryce.

Gryzor · 09:35, 10 April 13

It's a relatively new HxC, used very little. And it's the boxed version, which means the contacts are not accessible...

Siorah · 09:46, 10 April 13

mm it sounds like your sd card might have a borked FAT perhaps, i get this all the time with students work on cameras. it writes fine, then trying to read back it errors, sometimes it's also a 'fake' card.

What class/brand/size are they and what are you formatting them to? I would also check to see if the cards are good using this software: http://www.softpedia.com/get/System/System-Miscellaneous/H2testw.shtml

it fills the card up with data and checks if it can read it all back.

I'm sorry to hear you're having problems

Gryzor · 10:03, 10 April 13

Never had troubles with SD cards, to tell you the truth - cameras, phones, computers. Only HxC has been giving me trouble since day 1

Plus, it wouldn't make any sense, so many damaged SDs, unless the HxC was damaging them?

Using all sorts of SDs, from no-name 2GBs to Kingston and Sandisk 8GB and everything in between...

Thanks for the recommendation, just run it. Of course, no errors were found as expected...

Gryzor · 10:14, 10 April 13

Craziness continues. I try witht he previous SD. Start HxC manager, I get the error that HXCSDFE.CFG failed. Cool, I say, because the manager entered Direct Access mode which is one step up -and write a new cfg. Again: [72].

*cries*

Gryzor · 10:17, 10 April 13

Empty disk, just the cfg file - [72]

redbox · 11:21, 10 April 13

Well just as a side note, so many people are telling tales of how flaky SD Cards are when they're being used in Raspberry Pis and the general consensus is that they just weren't designed to be constantly written/read media.

Gryzor · 11:23, 10 April 13

Never had a problem with my Pi to tell you the truth... but seriously, the HxC is much less r/w intensive than a camera, surely? And I don't remember ever having a bad/corrupted photo, after gigs and gigs of photo-taking.

redbox · 11:25, 10 April 13

Quote from: Gryzor on 11:23, 10 April 13
Never had a problem with my Pi to tell you the truth... but seriously, the HxC is much less r/w intensive than a camera, surely? And I don't remember ever having a bad/corrupted photo, after gigs and gigs of photo-taking.

Maybe the HxC does something the poll the card whenever you turn it on/reset?

Anyway, a lot of SD card problems can be solved by nuking the partitions. Have you tried a decent partition manager?

Gryzor · 11:30, 10 April 13

Yeah, I was beginning to suspect that, maybe especially when you turn it off?
Hm, no... you mean delete the partition altogether and fixing a new one in? Good idea, will try it!!!

[EDIT] you got a particular partition manager in mind?

redbox · 11:34, 10 April 13

Quote from: Gryzor on 11:30, 10 April 13
[EDIT] you got a particular partition manager in mind?

The MiniTool Partition Wizard sorted out the SD card from my Pi when it died.

Gryzor · 13:02, 10 April 13

Ahhh yes, used it in the past, thanks.
For the time being, the SD card that didn't work after yesterday decided to work again. Go figure. I am also starting to suspect it really needs to be pushed hard into the slot, though it may be a case of wishful thinking, like Speccy owners did when loading tapes.

Bryce · 13:11, 10 April 13

And FD-1 owners did when loading disks.

Bryce.

Gryzor · 13:12, 10 April 13

Never had one back in the day, but never had a problem nowadays (unless a game wanted to run from A:)... what was the problem?

Bryce · 13:29, 10 April 13

The loading mechanism starts to get quite stiff after a while, so the disk doesn't go all the way in and just makes a clicking sound when you CAT. Pushing the disk in with a bit more speed / force usually solved this.

Bryce.

Gryzor · 13:35, 10 April 13

Ah I see. But it's not the same as holding your breath, spreading salt around the tape recorder or chanting Aztec curses to make it load...

ralferoo · 13:55, 10 April 13

The problem is that even though all SD cards all look the same, they can be very, very different inside. Essentially, there's a little CPU in there (or at least a very complicated state machine) which manages all the wear levelling etc. In part, a lot of what you're paying for on an expensive brand SD card is a better controller. It's this software that essentially stops individual cells of flash being written beyond their expected lifetime and pre-erasing cells so they can be written to quickly in the future. Some of the more complicated controllers even understand the FAT filesystem, so will start erasing blocks when they're marked as not used in the FAT, and other tricks.

There are some other surprising things about flash memory - it's not just write leveling you need to worry about as you can lose information just by reading data from a NAND, so NAND based (as used in SD cards) devices also need to keep track of read accesses and periodically re-write data to ensure it doesn't degrade.

As well as some dodgy Chinese clones having only half the stated capacity and controller software such that all appears well until you hit the real limit, there are also some badly designed modules that stop working completely when any cell fails rather than just marking it as bad.

All in all, there's a lot to potentially go wrong. However, I only ever use Kingston and Sandisk for important data and so far I've not had any signficant issues with either of them.

00WReX · 14:02, 10 April 13

Could also try the HP format tool (as in Hewlett Packard).
It is supposed to give a cleaner more complete format than windows does on flash devices... $:-\$
I have seen it recommended a lot in the past, but for some reason HP do not have it on their site any more.
Can be found quite easily though and usually found on sites showing how to make bootable Flash devices.

Try the file "HPUSBFW_2.2.3_MASTER.zip" from the following link...

http://forum.corsair.com/v3/showthread.php?p=432257

It is a stand alone program (no install) and needs to be run as "Admin" in windows 7 (right click "Run as Administrator")

Bit of a description here...

HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool Freeware Download

Cheers,
Shane

Jeff_HxC2001 · 17:37, 10 April 13

Quote from: Gryzor on 09:28, 10 April 13
I will start silently weeping in a few minutes.

The SD card I was using last time I used it (a few months back) didn't work now. This has happened to me several times now, with 2 different HxCs. By "didn't work" I mean "Error: Floppy Access error! [72]" when starting the manager.

I sighed, pulled out another SD from the drawer, formatted it, alright - we're in business! Today, I add some more files - fuck me, same error again. Formatted the card (full format) a few times on my PC and laptop, still 72, 72, 72. One time I even got a [76]. Right now I can browse the files on the SD from the HxC's screen, switch to B:, cat the disc, but when I try to run something... "read fail".

Please, please, anyone, any ideas? I'm so frustrated and desperate...

Once again : I am sure that this not a SDCard problem, but an power supply problem, or something like this (floppy cable connection problem...) .
How do you power your board ? Please take a picture of you setup and post it here.
Also when did you buy this board ? Did you apply the resistor patch i recommend you some years ago ?

Quote from: Gryzor on 09:28, 10 April 13

The SD card I was using last time I used it (a few months back) didn't work now. This has happened to me several times now, with 2 different HxCs. By "didn't work" I mean "Error: Floppy Access error! [72]" when starting the manager.

This is the proof that this not an SDCard problem : This error come in the manager when you got a floppy interface problem. The SDCard is not directly involved under the manager. floppy sectors are generated by the pic in this mode.

Jeff_HxC2001 · 17:51, 10 April 13

Quote from: Gryzor on 13:02, 10 April 13
Ahhh yes, used it in the past, thanks.
For the time being, the SD card that didn't work after yesterday decided to work again. Go figure. I am also starting to suspect it really needs to be pushed hard into the slot, though it may be a case of wishful thinking, like Speccy owners did when loading tapes.

Once again : Please check you power supply... Please check your floppy connection...

Jeff_HxC2001 · 17:56, 10 April 13

Quote from: Gryzor on 09:28, 10 April 13
One time I even got a [76]. Right now I can browse the files on the SD from the HxC's screen, switch to B:, cat the disc, but when I try to run something... "read fail".

Please check/clean up your floppy connection, or change the floppy cable. These connection problems are very common with the CPC6128 Edge connector...

Jeff_HxC2001 · 17:59, 10 April 13

Quote from: Gryzor on 10:17, 10 April 13
Empty disk, just the cfg file - [72]

And once again : Not point at all with the SDCard...

Check your floppy connection and power supply.
The issue is certainly there.

Jeff_HxC2001 · 18:01, 10 April 13

Quote from: Gryzor on 09:28, 10 April 13
Please, please, anyone, any ideas? I'm so frustrated and desperate...

Question : Why didn't you contact me ?

Jeff_HxC2001 · 19:48, 10 April 13

As reminder :

Quote from: Gryzor on 16:00, 19 April 11
Jumpers are set as always - not many options to screw it up anyway - and cable is almost brand new, apparently perfect. The device is set up as drive B.

*However*, I realised that there was a disc in the A drive and this prevented the loader from loading from the emulator! I'm not sure if this was the case from the beginning, but I have reproduced it every time I insert a disc and try to open the Loader software... is this a known thing?

Please tell me :
> Which power supply are you using ?
> Which floppy cable are you using ?
> Which jumper settings are you using ?

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At wit's end with HxC...