Hulamau

Huge thanks Ozpeter! I jsut downloaded Reaper and was able to import all teh tracks and save them as one large WAV file which I can split up easily and edit with Goldwave. This is a very cool program and I look forward to learning what it can do. I'll try to boost the level of the Mixer feeding the mini-disc player tommorrow to try and prevent the extra tracks, but at least I now have a way out if it still makes all the unwanted tracks.

Hi Folks, I've got an urgent question. Tommorrow I'm recording a lecture in a hall at the local University for later WAV editing and CD production, but instead of using a standalone mic into the RH10 mic input, we are using a Mixer with a separte mic for the main speaker and a separate mic for the audience and will feed teh ouput of the mixer into the line level connection in the RH-10. The last time I did this the two hour recording was broken up into about 400 separte tracks ranging from 5 seconds to 5 minutes in length and made splicing it all back together and editing the WAV file next to impossible. Can anyone PLEASE suggest how to avoid this? Is there a way to turn off the autotrack feature and just manually set the track marks at tHE end of each hour, or can we turn up the volume on the mixer and SET the background noise high enough not to trigger the auto-traCk mode? Sorry for the short time notice but I need an answer in a couple hours and its now 9:20pm West Coast time on Wednesday May 24. Many thanks, Hulamau

Hi All, It was strange, it would give me the 'Format Error Disc' message after showing me the titles and I tried to upload digitally unsuccessfully again, and then not be accessable, and if I took the disc out and put it back in three times somehow it would randomly load up properly and when I saw that the error message was no longer showing on the display of the MZ-NH900. I immediately set up my Xitel Inport USB A/D recorder and 'Lo and behold' recovered the entire recording via my Goldwave editing software!!! Ureka! Its now all saved as two long wav files and sounds great! I still couldnt do a digital upload but at least I was able to get the audio off the disc. When I tried to play it back again via the Hi-MD player, it reverted back to the 'Format Error Disc' message but at least I can sleep well tonight! Many thanks for the help folks! Hulamau

A440, I did what you suggested and tried to upload the damged disc again but this time using SS 3.2 and to my surprise SS 3.2 this time did show the correct tracks and time lengths and even the right track titles I had added just before the aborted upload attempt using SS 3.1. However, just when I was all fired up to finally be able to recover this audio and I clicked the transfer button after only a second the transfer progress bar at the top move all the way across to full and an error messge popped up in SS 3.2 along with a chime tone saying "Internall error for "London Aug 6th Disc 1 of 2 and "London Aug 6th disc 2 of 2" which is what I had named the two 80 minute audio tracks on the disc. Acurtally there were three other tracks at teh beginnig nof the disc but each were just 10 to 15 second long tracks that the person who made the recording in England had inserted when doing mic testing prior to recording the two tracks with the actual talks. After this second aborted upload the same "Format Error Disc" memo shows up in the display of the MZ-NH900 again as it did before with SS 3.1 , but if I pop the disc out and put it back in and restart SS3.2 it will again reset SS 3.2 to read the correct track titles and time lengths of each track again, so I know the audio data itself is intact! There has GOT to be some data recovery service that could figure this out and recover that data for me. This is maddening! Any more suggestions based on what I've reproted above now with SS 3.2 giving me this tantalizing glimpse, but no cigar? Many thanks again, Hulamau

Many thanks YNOS and A440 It really is a travesty that they can dump this lousy software on us! I've contacted their US head of marketimng to see if I can find the right person at Sony engineering /support to sendthis disc to for recovery and see what happens. When I try to just play the disc in my regular HiMD MZ-NH900 I get the "Format Error Disc" message but I will try to uplaod it ocne again but useing 3.2 this time. Any other disc and it would have just moderately ticked me off, but this was a truly special 'one of a kind' session that hundreds of people were counting on hearing. I just dont have the time to make 'real-time' analog backups of every disc I get in for uploading and editing but I sure wish I had done so with this one. Are we sure now that 3.2 shouldnt cause this problem any longer? And can I retitle the separate tracks on a HiMD disc after I upload them adn convert to WAV as aparto the upload process via SS 3.2, rather than retitling them before uploading? I suppose I should still check the Rename Music files option in any event? I also selected 256K as the fall back default format (which is what it was recorded at) and I selected NOT to delete the files from the player and to convert to WAV in the advanced options. Thanks again and I look forward to hearing if you have any luck with your contacts I'll let you know if I have any as well.

I have an urgent problem I am hoping someone can help me with. I tried to upload a HIMD 1 GB disc recorded at 256K Atrac 3-Plus on a RH-10 ( a US model) The recording was done in England and sent to me for uploading and subsequent editing for resale. It had 3 hours of highly important talks by a teacher in London and this was a special one time event. I had never had problems with SS 2.3 thru 3.1 previously and when the HiMD disc arrived, I naturally put it in my MZ-NH900 HiMD player, connected the USB cable and taped the AC power cord to make sure it didnt come loose and generally took the same level of precaution as I would to launch the space shuttle. I then retitled all the tracks, and each track was about 60 to 80 mintues long and there were 3 tracks on the disc. After labeling all the tracks prior to upload, I selected to not delete the tracks from the HiMD player post upload and also selected to convert to WAV for editing after upload, I then clicked the orange transfer button as usual. There was a brief delay of a second or two tops and then an error mesage appeared in SS and a corresponding one on the display of the MZ-NH900 saying: "Format Error Disc" . It did transfer my new folder name for the files that I had written just prior to pushing the transfer button, to SS 'My Library' on the left hand pane, but the folder has zero bytes in it and, just my luck, I can no longer access the disc at all! To my gut wrentching dismay that was it and I felt as if I been turned into a pillar of salt at Sodom and Gomorrah! I couldn't do a darn thing with it after clicking around SS and had to turn it off and unplug the USB cable. Again, I can no longer access the disc as I get the same "Format Error Disc" message whenever I try to play it. The disc played perfectly prior to starting the upload so I know it was good to go beforehand. The error mesage came up so quickly there was not enough time, by any means, to have actually formatted the disc, and I'm sure it must have just scrambled the preamble or table of contents or whatever SS does to randomly ruin discs like this. This was a personal recording from a microphone on the mic imputs and NOT copy protected. My question now is, does anyone know of ANY data recovery service that I could pay to have the audio data rescued from this single HiMD disc? Unfortunately, I was unaware of version 3.2 before trying this upload three weeks ago and had just upgraded to 3.1 in late July. Does SS 3.2 promise to prevent these kind of random diasters? I am desparate to recover at least the first two hours of this audio, if at all possible. Finally, does anyone know what department at Sony I might contact, or any other outside data service that could help? Sony is bound to have a way to reverse their own copy protection system, even when it goes haywire like this (I pray). Many thanks for any assitance and information, I much appreciate it. Aloha, Hulamau.