Questions about management support md

[sescoscuba]

Hi all,

two questions i ve not find in forum ( perhaps for my bad english )

1) there is a way of knowing if a MD has never been used or if it was just deleted?

2) using simple burner, it is better to delete or format md?

Thank you

Have a nice day

Sergio

[PhilippeC]

1) from the moment the MD is not any more wrapped, it is consider are a used one. To distingued such MDs never recorded or just deleted there is no way except perhaps the aspect of the MD itself. Maybe the service mode will give you more information about the disk but it is risky to enter inside service mode.

2) that depend on what you want to record. For example for a completely new recording, it is better to format using All Erase. For a re-recording of the same tracks, maybe you would like to keep the titles of the disc and name of groups, then edit your MD and delete only tracks.

[sescoscuba]

Hi PhilippeC

Thank you for explain.

Have a good day

sergio

[sfbp]

For Non-HiMD's, INCLUDING those which are formatted to HiMD specifications, formatting (or erase all, in a deck) will completely empty the disk, provided you format it with the default format set to MD (not HiMD).

For Hi-MD's (especially 1GB disks) this is not true. HiMD keeps a list of all tracks you erased (if they were transferred from PC) and uses this to check if the license count on the PC needs to be updated. Silly system. This can easily confuse attempts to get consistent errors from HiMD with testing, because the actions of SonicStage after inserting a blank disk may seem very very strange. There is a lot of reading that happens (first) at a time when you expect the PC to be writing.

There's another twist, however: if you start to transfer files using SonicStage to a blank 80 (or 74) minute disk in HiSP format, the HiMD directory is NOT written until the first time you actually transfer a file. Very confusing!

Stephen

[sescoscuba]

Hi Stephen

thanks

Yes, is very confusing :-))

have a nice day

Sergio

[sfbp]

To go back to your original questions:

1. With non-HiMD's you can erase the disk to something like pristine condition. If you TOC clone a disk with a full track, you can maybe get back what was on it***. With HiMD's, 80m disks (and 74,60 of course) you can see the HiMD directory in Windows (or in a non-HiMD unit). Even if erasing all the files, you will see some evidence the disk has been used. With 1GB disks I do not know of a way to remove all data, since they can not be read or written in a non-HiMD machine.

2. Essentially there is no difference between format and erase all. You may notice some menu differences in the unit depending on exactly what disk and what you have previously recorded. I am not sure what Simple Burner does.

Maybe SB will allow you to clean the 1GB disks completely (at least of music). I never thought of that. Erase one inside SB, and then (I just checked) Sonic Stage no longer checks by trying to transfer track licenses back to PC!!!! Now a Windows format (you will need to stop SB and SS) genuinely writes lots of 0's. Only one problem - all the people with Windows 7 cannot run SB. If the track licenses are kept inside those Windows files you can see, then Windows Format is the way to go. Not sure about that, yet.

I just learned something. Thank YOU Sergio.

Stephen

*** and so to make it truly blank is completely impossible, the best you could do would be to carefully record silence. But even silence is not the same as blank.

[THIS SUCKS]

just format it in windows. it will be blank with no files.

[sescoscuba]

Hi Stephen,

perfect explain

referring of ***, it is philosophy or the ratio s / n is less over md already used?

Thanks

Sergio

[sfbp]

just format it in windows. it will be blank with no files.

Hi-MD - yes.

Lo-MD - no.

[sfbp]

referring of ***, it is philosophy or the ratio s / n is less over md already used?

Data is data. No difference in s/n. A completely virgin disk (no tracks on it) will lay down audio data sequentially, which is only important if you have to recover the music by TOC cloning. Otherwise unimportant.