Floppy disk problems

[peterhwright]

As an experiment, saved a show to floppy disk then wiped the desk and tried to load the show from disk. The result was that no show could be found on the disc. So programmed a few memories and saved again only this time tried to load the show without clearing the desk and the show was found on the disk. Then cleared the desk once more and once more no show could be found on the disk. Any ideas as this could be pretty disastrous if the desk is wiped and your back up doesn't work?

[KWR88]

Dear Peter,

 

Please could you give me the desk serail number and version of software tht it's running.

I have tried on the desk that I have an can't seem to find any problems with loading or saving shows.

[yellaasian]

cannot get drive to read cft , gft files or save & load show files.

I have tried many different ways and on 2 different types of disks .. It will read osf just installed 7.5 I have had this problem since installing 6.2

[Paul]

Can you let us know the serial number of your desk please.

 

Cheers,

 

Paul.

[yellaasian]

serial number 0073301 xxxxxxxx

 

here it is thanks yellaasian

 

Moderation: serial number removed.

[Paul]

We have seen reliability problems with some Panasonic disk drives that were used in early desks. All new desks now ship with Teac/TDK disk drives, the changeover occurred around the middle of 2001. The serial number of your desk indicates it was manufactured before this time.

 

Release 7.5 includes a change in the low level disk access routines, to speed up disk access. It might be that this speed up has aggrevated a problem with your drive.

 

Try opening up your desk, and swapping the disk drive for anything that wasn't made by Panasonic. This should fix your problem!

[yellaasian]

Could you send me one of the drives that you put into the new boards to avoid other problems and to keep my boss from saying that we bought a broken board My address is The Pageant c/o Bob Owen 6161 Delmar Ave St Louis, MO 63130 USA Thanks Bob

[Angelos]

I had a problem with the console not reading the upgrade disk (v7.5). I formatted a disk into the console and then copied the files on it and it worked. It also read a show backup from the previous version (v6.2).

 

Do I have to change the drive because it happened the first time ?

[Simon]

I had a problem with the console not reading the upgrade disk (v7.5). I formatted a disk into the console and then copied the files on it and it worked.

 

 

Long Version...

The BIOS in the frogs occasionally gets confused trying to find OSF files on a disk that has had files deleted from it, due to Windows/DOS leaving old file headers on the disk with a deleted flag.

 

I recommend formatting the disk (in windows or on the desk either will do) before copying the OSF file onto the disk. This removes all deleted file headers from the disk making it easier for the BIOS to find the upgrade file.

 

(Perhaps we should add a note to this effect on the Upgrade download page?)

 

This is in no way related to the problem with Panasonic drives discussed earlier in this thread.

 

Short Version...

Theres nothing wrong with your drive, the BIOS just prefers upgrade files to be copied onto freshly formatted disks.

[yellaasian]

back to my problem the drive will only read the upgrade software it will not read or save anything else. if this is a problem with bad drives installed in the earlier boards which was said earlier to me then there should be no reason that i should have to buy a new drive one should be sent to me to replace the bad one as it is a defect

Thanks BoB

[K-Nine]

You are absolutely right, there is no reason that you should have to purchase a drive. I think the suggestion was given in good faith, in the hope that it would get you going again.

 

The Frog range comes with a 3 year warranty. Please contact your local distributor, and they will be able to organise a drive for you.

 

Apologies for any confusion.

[lawsonpd]

Fat Frog running version 8.0.1

 

1) Doesn't see show files on 720Kb floppies (created on Frog off-line editor)

2) Won't save show on 1.44Mb floppy (Saving show... 0% complete Wait or words to that effect)

 

Any thoughts?

 

Peter

[Paul]

Please can you could provide the serial number of your desk, so that we can determine what version of the hardware you have.

[lawsonpd]

Hi,

 

The serial number of the desk is 0073301 xxxxxxxx

 

I've read the postings about BIOS issues and the possibility that deleted files remaining on the disk may cause a problem. I will try the suggestion of formatting a floppy in the desk and saving to that.

 

Peter

 

Moderation: serial number removed.

[Paul]

Your desk was made in week 48, 2002. Hence you definitely have a TDK/Teac disk drive. No worries there!

 

The Frog operating system only supports 1.44M disks, which explains why the 720K disk didn't work.

 

Like you say, formatting the disk in the desk may solve your problems. If not, try a different disk. If you're problem is still not solved, then return the desk to the dealer you bought it from, or give our friendly service man Keith a ring and arrange for the desk to be sent back to us.

[lawsonpd]

Hurrah,

 

Formatting a 1.44Mb floppy in the fat frog - saved the show (literally!)

 

Thanks

 

Peter

[Mel]

We have a problem with a Fat Frog - I can preset a show on Phantom and load it in to the desk no problem. I cannot save a show from the desk - the drive does not light and the screen displays ""saving showXX 0% (cancel)"" It stays like this for as long as you care to wait. Cancel does not respond and the only way out is to switch off the desk. The OS is 9.8.01 and will also not update to 10.4 - have tried several downloads and several discs. The upshot is that I have no backups of shows and can only do one at a time unless I replicate every move on the Phantom. Everything else on teh desk seems to be perfect!

 

Any Ideas?

 

Cheers

 

Mel

[KWR88]

Please can you give me the desk serial number (by PM please) so I can date the unit.

 

The most obvious cause is going to be a fault with the floppy drive or possibly the connection to the floppy drive, the cable may have worked loose.

[nighteyes]

ok. now i'm convinced it itsn't just me. I have had the same exact problem, both with a fatfrog and a bullfrog console, the problem never occured before the software upgrades. For some reason i can't as yet explain this is what happens.

 

Fatfrog, using 10.4 software. I am able to load shows just fine, But, sometimes, when i try to save the show, the desk hangs at: saving show....0%. Resetting is the only way to fix it. At first it looked like a faulty disk problem, since another disk worked just fine. Also, reformatting the faulty disk from the fatfrog console also solved the problem. But its still weird, loading en reading the disk directory works fine, but when u try to save something, the desk hangs.

 

Bullfrog, using 10.1 software, same problem, exactly the same.

 

As it looks now, i would say the software upgrades, somehow made the saving process more sensative to errors on the disk?????

 

Or it could just be a coincidence of faulty disk?

[KWR88]

can you pm me the desk serial numbers if possible for both the desks.

 

As far as I know the latest version of the os has done nothing to the floppy drive controls.

 

I am still waiting for more information on the reports that we have had to see if I can spot a common thread with them.

[torch1972]

I have a number of pieces of fixture software that I have written over the past year to put on the fat frog. I have written some new fixture software for some showtec LED power brick. when I come to load the software to the fat frog the desk does not see the new software or some of the old software. Help! Any thoughts what happening? I have software version 9.8 loaded

[Paul]

Often floppy problems can be solved by formatting a disk in the desk itself, before copying files (whether they be software upgrades or fixture personalities) onto it from your PC.

 

Try this and let us know if it solves the problem.

[Pauldf]

Hi, I have a fat frog desk and the floppy drive is about on its last legs, the flap is missing etc so I am looking to change it. Just wondering if there is anything special about the drives as I have tried a normal (new) floppy drive and it didn't work, the drive would click in when asked to format but then come back with no disk. The old drive is now back in and working. Are there any recommended makes/models to look out for? Where sells them?

Thanks in advance

Paul F.

[Paul]

The floppy disk drive is a standard 3.5in PC floppy drive (TDK/Teac drives are fitted in most desks). However you might find that if you have an old BIOS chip in the desk (before version 5.2.1), that you may get problems with certain disk drives if they don't initialise themselves to the first sector at power-up. In BIOS 5.2.1 (released March 2004) and later, the BIOS forces this initialisation for better compatibility.

 

Having an old BIOS isn't the end of the world - it just means you might have to try a few times to get a software upgrade disk to be recognised. Saving/loading shows, fixture data, formatting the disk etc. is all handled by the desk software independantly of the BIOS. If you're having problems with these functions, then there's probably not much hope of getting your drive to work and it would be best to try another. If you give Keith a call in the office (01633-838088), he'll be able to let you know if we are still able to supply the drives we used as a spare part.

[Pauldf]

Thanks for the reply, I will try phoning next week.