I've just about had it with Hi-MD

[petertkalec]

So I'm from Canada and travelling in Asia. I've travelled with my Hi-MD before and my NetMD before that, and each time I've discoverred new frustrations.

This time I transferred a butt-load of music to five Hi-MDs just before leaving, only to discover - while on the plane from Toronto to Hong Kong - that the songs in each group weren't in the order that they appear on the album. Damn. Do you know how much of a pain it is to manually re-order songs on the MD unit? After correcting a few folders, I realized that having to re-oder every song on the five discs was out of the question.

So after a week in China I've arrived in Thailand - a litteral paradise. I'm vacationing for two months, and I broke down today and sat in an internet cafe and downloaded SonicStage on a mediocre connection. When it came time to re-boot I asked the dude if my efforts would be lost, if the public computer would undo any changes that I made to it. He instructed my to switch computers, and I thought, "no problem, I'll just drag & drop the installer files to my Hi-MD (flash drive)." That way I wouldn't have to re-download everything.

After copying the files I used the WinXP hardware wizard thingee to stop the device before disconnecting it, then pressed stop on my MD and the unit told me, "Okay to Eject" or whatever it says.

I ejected, then unplugged my cable and moved over to the other computer. When I re-inserted my disc it told me, "Format Error Disc" followed by "Format to record or Play?". Damn. When I plug in the unit (to the USB port on this second machine) it reads "Access Error".

So now I'm re-downloading the installer files, and using the extra time to rant.

While I will continue to use my Hi-MD for recording - I've had great success recording and uploading - this thing is nothing but trouble otherwise. For daily playback I'm getting an iPod. Probably one of those cool Nanos.

- Peter.

[LupinIV]

So I'm from Canada and travelling in Asia. I've travelled with my Hi-MD before and my NetMD before that, and each time I've discoverred new frustrations.

- Peter.

Peter,

while sometime I share your frustration, it sounds like "operator error" to me. But don't get mad, minidisc are definetly not the easiest of the devices.

The new SS is actually giving you a lot more choices with groups and playlists. Play sometime trying the options and you will be happy again.

Good luck!

Cheers

[dex Otaku]

I ejected, then unplugged my cable and moved over to the other computer. When I re-inserted my disc it told me, "Format Error Disc" followed by "Format to record or Play?". Damn. When I plug in the unit (to the USB port on this second machine) it reads "Access Error".

I've seen this happen, and have so far been able to save the disc in question by removing it from the unit, removing all sources of power from the unit, then plugging back in &c.

[petertkalec]

You think it was operator error? What did I do wrong?

[dex Otaku]

What did I do wrong?

I can't answer as to why LupinIV thinks it was OE, but I do know that SS often mis-sorts MP3 and WAV tracks when you import them. In the future I'd at least check that you sort by track# [after maknig sure SS has seen the track#s correctly, which I have also seen it not do properly - though that was in versions previous to] before downloading.

And I agree that moving tracks on the unit is a PITA. Having now used the editing functions of HiMD repeatedly for testing purposes, I can say that this is probably the most fiddly function of them all.

[fakename88]

I can't answer as to why LupinIV thinks it was OE, but I do know that SS often mis-sorts MP3 and WAV tracks when you import them. . . .

Try turning off all of the options in the Tools --> Options --> Get CD Info menu.

Like everything else in SonicStage, it really doesn't work and only screws up your media library.

The only explanation for SonicStage is that there is a mole from Apple working at Sony . . .

[petertkalec]

Goddamn... I've once again settled in to an internet cafe and committed to the download and installation procedure. Rebooted, loaded my hi-md and started to re-order some songs within an album/group. Two songs successfully moved, then the unit flashed "Access Error" then SS crashed, then once disconnected from the PC the unit tells me "Cannot record or play" followed by "Create Audio File?" and then "Push Yes: Enter No: Cancel" Popping out the disc, then the battery, then putting it all back together yields the same result.

Frikkin piece of crap.