Mz-nh700: Trouble

[Taka]

I bought the MZ-NH700 to be able to record my band while practizing. I don't want to use it to download music or copy my music CD's or whatever.

Now the device I bought came with a 1GB minidisc, which i can't seem to get working properly.

* I tried to record some stuff. After the first time it started to give an REC ERROR every time i recorded something new.

* It recorded something apperently, because there's 3 MB file on the disc which i can see in Windows explorer after connection it through USB. Also I once succeeded in playing it in SonicStage (I have version 2.1), but I can not repeat it.

* I tried transferring that recording in SonicStage to apperently my HD. But that did not work, although there was no error.

Anyway, it was just testing, and i don't care very much if the recording is lost.

So I tried to use SonicStage to "initialize" the disk. On several tries several things happened:

- first try was not succesfull, i got an error message from the program saying - i don't recall the exact wording - that it was unable to initliaze the disc.

- second time it asked me if i wanted to transfer the recording first, and i said "yes". It did some things (but no sign of a transferred file). Then it returned to the "initialize" option screen and froze.

- Since then the whole program crashes whenever i start it. At startup, the MD-player starts spinning, displays "ACCESS" and then "ACCESS ERROR", and then the program just crashes.

Ok i was not particularly happy with my new device in the first place, because

* At first it could not transfer recording from older (non Hi-MD) minidiscs through USB - and that was an important thing to me.

* Then while browsing i found out that a lot of Sony sites force you to use Internet Explorer, and do not accept another browser. For no obvious reason.

* Sites do not have a contact email address to send questions to. It's true that i found some chat-support, where a very polite "Bob" was trying to explain things, but then again, he could as well have been a bot, his answers were very standard and emotionless. And it did not help me.

* I read about a newer version of SonicStage (version 2.3), and wanted to download it. Places i get are Internet Explorer-only and meant to download music. And as said I don't want to download any music.

Sony seems to be a lot worse then Microsoft in being unreachable and just doing everything to make you pay, but not offering any service. Yes, it makes me angry.

Anyway: can anyone give me a clue on solving the issiues mentioned:

1. I want to be able to record stuff from a microphone. Why does everything seem to work untill the "REC ERROR". Is my disc corrupt?

2. I want to be able to "initialize" the disc (if nothing else). I guess that it is something like formatting. Why doesn't that work?

3. I want to download the latest version of SonicStage without doing any payments for music (because i don't want to download music)

4. I want to spit in the face of Sony for being so very consumer-unfriendly and apparently only being busy with making people pay.

Taka

[Taka]

Just to add something:

I know why i was not able to find the latest SonicStage version after going to the indicated page at http://musicstore.connect.com/mb_us/IESignup.flow

1. It's a confusing page. It says "download Connect Player", while i was looking for "SonicStage".

2. The download does not work in Firefox (or rather: does not work with a popup blocker).

When do people learn that popups are passé?

And why does the the MP3-library program not ask me where i want it installed?? It just installs on C:\Program Files

That is NOT where i want my programs to be installed.

When does the annoyance ever stop?

[Christopher]

Download Sonicstage 2.3 here: http://forums.minidisc.org/images/SS23ENG.exe. Do not uninstall anything prior, just install on top of your current installation. Hit this thread back up when you're done and we'll go from there.

[Taka]

I already found and installed it.

I get "ACCESS ERROR" on the display of the MD-player all the time. Even after running Windows checkdisc. Windows reported to have found errors and fixed them. But I still get an error when working from Window explorer, and trying to copy some of the files there. I can write a file, and then read it again, but I can't copy at least some of the files currently present on the disc.

the files i can see are:

Hi-md.ind

a directory named "Hmdhifi" with these files:

_0010012.hma

_mdhifi.hma

00010012.htm

atdata02.hma

mclist01.hma

mclist02.hma

trkidx01.hma

trkidx02.hma

Using SonicStage:

On "transfer" the first time it starts transferring untill 65%, and then meets an error and stops transferring. After that nothing has been transferred. After that SonicStage does not see any recordings anymore.

"Initialize" fails.

What should I do? Format the disc from Windows and then try "initialize"? Or is that something to never do.

[Christopher]

Format the disc via the unit itself. This is explained in your instruction manual..

..try transferring after that.

[Taka]

I have reformatted the disc from the menu in the player, and now it seems to work as it should.

Any clue as to what went wrong? How can one corrupt a disc in such a way that it refuses to function?

Now that I think about it. I might have interrupted the proces of writing to file after the first recording. It seemed to be taking a lot of time, and i needed to start recording the next song. Could that have corrupted the whole disc, not just the file?

Anyway this problem seems solved, thanks. Now for the next problems - I'll start another thread about those.

[Christopher]

Keep it in here mate, no need to deviate..