#1670401 - 07/11/20 09:10 PM
Zip Disk Song Copy Format
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simpleton
Space Cadet
Registered: 06/12/20
Posts: 10
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Referencing page 94 of the Roland VS-880EX Owner's Manual under heading "Saving on a single disk (Playable)", I'm trying to determine what format the song copied onto the Zip drive is. Is the song in the same format as it exists on the internal HDD? The manual seems to imply this when it says in the last paragraph on that page:
"Normally you will use this method to copy song data. If
song data is copied using this method, you can specify the
copy destination disk drive as the current drive, and directly
perform operations such playback or undoing a recording."
However, when I move a song copied to a Zip disk in this way back to the VS-880EX internal HDD via a Windows machine (not via the VS-880EX menu system), the VS-880EX does does not recognize the song. Yet when I copy the song back to the VS-880EX internal HDD from the Zip drive using the VS-880EX menu system, then the VS-880EX does recognize it. Why is this?
Furthermore, I notice the folder/file structures of the two versions of the song (the version on the internal VS-880EX HDD and the version on the Zip disk) look completely different under a Windows menu system, making me think they are different formats and the VS-880EX song copy process does dome kind of conversion.
For example, see below the folder/file formats of the two versions of the song (I added file/folder type and size in parenthesis):
VS-880EX HDD root folder:
SONG0000.VR9 (folder, 0 KB)
System Volume Information (folder, 64 KB)
SONGLIST.VR9 (file, 1 KB)
SYSTEM.VR9 (file, 1 KB)
VS-880EX HDD SONG0000.VR9 Folder:
[] .. [] (file?, 0 KB)
[] .. [] (file?, 0 KB)
Zip disk root folder:
SONG0000.VR9 (folder, 69 MB)
SYSTEM.VR9 (file, 1 KB)
Zip disk SONG0000.VR9 folder:
EFFECT.VR9 (file, 2 KB)
EFFECT0.VR9 (file, 2 KB)
EVENTLIST.VR9 (file, 1 KB)
MARKER.VR9 (file, 12 KB)
MIXER.VR9 (file, 7 KB)
SONG.VR9 (file, 1 KB)
SYNCTRK.VR9 (file, 64 KB)
SYSTEM.VR9 (file, 1 KB)
TAKE0B6F.VR9 (file, 17,344 KB)
TAKE08B3.VR9 (file, 18,144 KB)
Completely different. Notice the files in the song folder on the internal HDD are unrecognizable by Windows and have some weird characters as a name and show as having no size, yet on the Zip drive they are recognized files and show file size. Anyone here have any clue what is going on here?
Thanks BS-Planet
Edited by simpleton (07/11/20 09:14 PM)
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#1670414 - 07/11/20 10:37 PM
Re: Zip Disk Song Copy Format
[Re: simpleton]
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uptildawn
Planeteer
Registered: 12/15/01
Posts: 9073
Loc: on land
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Yes, this has been a known/unknown fact of the VS file system since the first time anyone ever wanted to move their songs between VS and PC. You can endlessly read of the many excursions of the planeteers into this realm, if you choose to do searches, or just peruse the threads - especially in the 1680, 880 and 840 forums.
Roland uses a proprietary file system, based on a FAT format, but different. They've never allowed or made available methods to make the system translatable either. A very few extremely talented planeteers came up with a few pc-based utilities that allow some data (track data specifically) to be converted to standard wav file form and you will quickly find those threads. Those tools, I'm afraid, are getting difficult to find and download today - mostly because of false positives being reported by various antivirus programs on people's computers - and thus making it very difficult to use.
Those 2-3 utilities are free to use, when you can find and install them. The one other alternative is a great hardware/software tool called VirDIS - It hovers around 300.00 (us) and require a pci or pcie slot and is pc-only. There's a VirDIS forum here and you can send the developer a pm, or contact him via his ebay listing, if he's still available. His name is Bill Casey.
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uptildawn
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#1670741 - 07/13/20 10:07 PM
Re: Zip Disk Song Copy Format
[Re: uptildawn]
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simpleton
Space Cadet
Registered: 06/12/20
Posts: 10
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Many thanks for your response and info uptildawn. I'm not able to get any search results when I try the search feature. I must be doing it wrong but it always comes back as empty...
In any case, this is a massive bummer. I have a ton of old songs backed up on Zip disks which I then transferred to CD many years ago and wanted to try and get them back onto the VS-880, but I no longer have the Zip drive.
I also got the new CF mod to replace the internal HDD thinking this would be an easy way to backup songs to PC, but because the file system is different, no luck there either.
I was able to do the wave conversion with the VSWE1 software and this is an amazing ability, but I wanted to be able to backup whole songs including tracks, effects settings, etc.
I guess I'll take a look at this VirDis and see if it can do what I am needing.
Thanks again,
MB
Edited by simpleton (07/13/20 10:12 PM)
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#1670820 - 07/14/20 10:01 AM
Re: Zip Disk Song Copy Format
[Re: simpleton]
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gyorpb
Planeteer
Registered: 05/11/19
Posts: 295
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Why not just get a Zip drive? They’re plentiful and dirt cheap.
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#1670846 - 07/14/20 02:55 PM
Re: Zip Disk Song Copy Format
[Re: gyorpb]
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uptildawn
Planeteer
Registered: 12/15/01
Posts: 9073
Loc: on land
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One major problem with just getting a cheap zip drive is the high potential of getting a unit that has developed what's commonly referred to as "the click of death". If you're fortunate enough to buy a "new" one, then more power to ya. But if you buy a zip drive that has this problem, you risk destroying any disk that you put in it - I know this from personal experience aside from the many youtube videos I later found that demonstrate and verified this phenom.
And believe me, all you need to do is put the disk into a bad drive, hear it click and remove the disk and it is a gonner (at least in my experience). Fortunately in my case I bought 3 used drives that looked great on the outside and found that only one of them actually worked right by testing them with a couple of donor disks first.
Just be wary, if you buy a used zip drive and test it with a disk you can afford to throw away.
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uptildawn
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#1670855 - 07/14/20 04:05 PM
Re: Zip Disk Song Copy Format
[Re: uptildawn]
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gyorpb
Planeteer
Registered: 05/11/19
Posts: 295
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The click of death developed due to manufacturing flaw, that was corrected in later production runs. A drive that survived this far, is highly unlikely to develop it now.
OP has data that needs to be transferred to Zip disk; that probably means there are no disks with precious data to destroy.
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#1670870 - 07/14/20 05:06 PM
Re: Zip Disk Song Copy Format
[Re: gyorpb]
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uptildawn
Planeteer
Registered: 12/15/01
Posts: 9073
Loc: on land
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Actually, and having rechecked a couple of the OP's older threads (all very recent, by the way), it's more complicated than just wanting to transfer the data to a zip disk.... As the OP states:
Quote:
I have a bunch of 880EX songs I once copied to Zip drive disks. I no longer have a Zip drive, or the disks, but I backed up those Zip disks to CDR years ago. So now I have a bunch of 880EX songs on CDR I want to restore to my 880EX. I recently modded my VS-880EX to use Compact Flash as the IDE drive. This works great btw. But now I want to find a way to restore those old Zip drive song copies back onto my VS-880EX, onto the Compact Flash. Is there a way to do this? How do you do this?... The Zip song copy files have actual readable files Windows recognizes. What is the difference here and is this why the 880 does not recognize my Zip song copy files when I try to put them onto the CF as-is?
Is there some intermediary conversion process I need to perform to make the Zip song copy files readable by the 880 on the CF card?
END Quote and taken from this thread -
http://www.vsplanet.com/ubbthreads/ubbth...115#Post1666115
And there is this:
Quote:
I had a VS-880EX back in '98 and have a bunch of backed up project files on CD that I copied over and burned from Zip disks. I recently picked up a used VS-880EX from Reverb and installed a Compact Flash mod in it.
Is there any way to transfer the backup Zip songs back to the VS-880EX via the CF card? I tried copying over the songs from CD to CF but the VS-880EX did not recognize them, so I assume there is some conversion process that needs to take place first?....... and this...... So I don't have a zip drive or cdr anymore. I just converted my HDD to Compact Flash. So there's no way that I see to restore the zip drive backups in the way you suggest. That implies I have a zip or cdr backup to restore to the internal HDD. But I want to take the zip drive backup files and copy them onto the Compact Flash so when I boot up the VS-880EX with the CF card in it (as the new HDD), the songs will be available..... END Quote... taken from this thread -
http://www.vsplanet.com/ubbthreads/ubbth...144#Post1665144
So, it appears to me that the OP is attempting to get the data back into a VS, without having the proper drive to connect to the VS, although they may still have either, or both, the original zip disks and the cdr copies on hand. The OP can answer to this in order to clarify, I hope.
Since the OP has been unsuccessful at restoring the backups to the VS by way of copying the songs to CF card, as they'd hoped, they need to recover the data through either a CD drive, or a Zip drive.
My original caution still holds, in my opinion. If buying a zip drive, be wary. If buying a new drive, then go for it and more power to ya. There's also the VS limitation of what it will recognize as a zip drive. I recall the 880 as being capable of reading 100mb and 250mb disks and possibly the 1gb jaz drives and disks. Anything other than that may not work with the VS. However, I am also not seeing cheap, new drives, so ymmv as far as price goes.
For 200+ dollars US, it might be just as advisable to find a used CDRII, or the CD RACK, or even CDRI, which in all likelihood will not mangle CD backups. Of course, that is if the OP still has the CDs.
The OP also does not say what sources they have to purchase, so this may all be a moot point and I'm just blowing a lot of hot air for nothing. Sorry, if that is so. No ill will intended by my responses.
Edited by uptildawn (07/14/20 05:08 PM)
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uptildawn
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#1670874 - 07/14/20 05:20 PM
Re: Zip Disk Song Copy Format
[Re: uptildawn]
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uptildawn
Planeteer
Registered: 12/15/01
Posts: 9073
Loc: on land
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It might be worth it to the OP to search for the Plextor W1210TSE - an external SCSI CDRW Drive, if they still have the backup CDs (that is, if they are known to be proper backups and not simply copied from the zip disks to CD on a computer, or at least verified to be readable by the VS). The Plextor is one of the known, reliable drives to work with the VS recorders. There are, of course, a handful of others and can be found on one of the compatibility lists floating around here on the planet forums.
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uptildawn
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#1670877 - 07/14/20 05:45 PM
Re: Zip Disk Song Copy Format
[Re: uptildawn]
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gyorpb
Planeteer
Registered: 05/11/19
Posts: 295
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The VS-880EX can handle Zip-100 and Zip-250 disks just fine. Any (SCSI-equipped) VS can handle Jaz disks; for all intents an purposes, they are just hard drives.
Bear in mind that the VS handles storage weirdly. The best course of action might well be, to format a (Zip) disk from the VS, then archive a song to it. Then use a computer to swap the files in that song archive for the ones that are to be restored.
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#1670901 - 07/14/20 07:38 PM
Re: Zip Disk Song Copy Format
[Re: gyorpb]
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simpleton
Space Cadet
Registered: 06/12/20
Posts: 10
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Wow guys, I didn't realize so many people were posting so much to my thread all of the sudden! Thanks for all your input, and thanks uptildawn for clarifying for me!
So to answer a few of the questions posed:
1. I no longer have a Zip drive or the Zip disks.
2. I backed up the contents of these original Zip disks to a Windows machine years ago via SCSI -> PCI card and then backed them all up on CDRs with a CD burner within Windows, not the CDR drive for the VS-880EX.
3. Yes, I am wondering if there is a way to copy these CDR backups of the songs back to my CF card, but as mentioned previously, the formats are different. For some reason, the files VS-880EX copied to the original Zip disks were always readable and movable within the Windows file system (hence my ability to back them up on CDRs). However, the song file structure as written to the internal VS-880EX (or, in my case, the CF card) are not the same as what is written to the Zip disks. When I insert the CF card from the VS-880EX into a CF card reader connected to Windows machine, Windows does not recognize all of the files and I cannot even copy or move them (see the file details I listed in OP). They show as having 0 size and Windows pops up an error saying they don't exist when I try to do anything with them.
Seems odd the Zip copies of the songs are readable, but the same ones on the internal drive are not. This led me to believe there must be some conversion process during the song copy process? Also keep in mind I am referring to the "Playable Song Copy" feature ("Saving on a single disk (Playable)"), not the "Archive" feature ("When the data cannot be saved on a single disk (Archive)") in the Owner's Manual pages 94-95.
I don't know that if I get a CDR drive for VS-880EX if it will recognize the songs and copy them back.
Edited by simpleton (07/14/20 07:51 PM)
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#1670906 - 07/14/20 08:03 PM
Re: Zip Disk Song Copy Format
[Re: simpleton]
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uptildawn
Planeteer
Registered: 12/15/01
Posts: 9073
Loc: on land
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And I also wondered whether or not the CD copies would work, because I considered whether you made "proper backups" of the original zip disks, or "burned" the zip disks to CD by way of the Windows computer system - This, you have just verified for us - that is, that you made copies of the zip disk contents on CDs burned in the Windows environment.
My suspicion is that these CDs will not be readable in the VS..... but I've also never exactly tried this, nor is my knowledge of file formats anywhere near enough to even suggest a guess...
I may be able to experiment with the idea, however, since I still own an 880 vxpanded, a working zip drive (and disks), a working CD burner that can create and read VS backups and can reinstall my old scsi pci card into an old pc I currently use for old stuff, in order for me to copy the zip disk contents into the Windows environment and burn CDs of that content from within Windows.
This will take me quite some time to run any experiments, because I will need to change the 880 os over to the version that can read/write zip (and change it back to the CD os version afterwards), as well as reinstall the scsi pci card for hooking up the zip drve to pc and then do some testing, too.... this while working around my current activities. So, I think I will do this, but not commitment to a timeline...
It is not odd to me at all that the zip copies you created on a windows system are readable within the windows system - but not readable on the VS. The VS file format is not readable directly within the windows system and vice versa. So generally speaking, copies of something made by windows cannot be read in the VS.
Those "backup copies" of the zip disk contents you made years ago might have sealed their doom right then.... Hopefully, I am completely wrong.
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uptildawn
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#1670915 - 07/14/20 08:21 PM
Re: Zip Disk Song Copy Format
[Re: uptildawn]
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simpleton
Space Cadet
Registered: 06/12/20
Posts: 10
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Hey uptildawn thanks for offering to take a look. That's cool you still have all that stuff! Makes me really wish i never got rid of any of it 
And no rush man, and no commitment expected. I know that will be a lot of work.
Just one thing to clarify though... I didn't make the Zip copies on Windows. I copied the songs as directed in the manual (page 94) from the 880 to the Zip disks via a Zip drive connected to the VS-880EX through its SCSI port. And then I had a separate Zip drive connected to my computer via SCSI where I could then read the Zip contents in Windows. From there I would copy the files to my Windows machine and then burn CD backups of them.
I was always able to then copy the songs backed up on CD back over to the Zip disks and then back into the VS-880EX in this manner no problem, and those files were always readable by Windows. I only ever had a few Zip disks I ever used and it was always strictly for backing up my songs due to the limited space on the 880 and the cost of those Zip disks. I could go from 880 to Windows and back whenever I needed using this process.
I was (perhaps naively) hoping the same approach would work with the CF card, but just bypassing the copy-to-Zip process in the middle, but no luck. The songs written directly to CF are not readable in Windows. That Zip copy process must have done something to make them readable in Windows... but what?
And here is the weird thing... I could always play those songs on the Zip disks connected to my 880! I just had to change the IDE to SCSI and I could play them straight from the Zip disks as if they were on the internal HDD. 
Edited by simpleton (07/14/20 08:24 PM)
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#1670951 - 07/14/20 10:22 PM
Re: Zip Disk Song Copy Format
[Re: simpleton]
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uptildawn
Planeteer
Registered: 12/15/01
Posts: 9073
Loc: on land
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Oh hey - that's very interesting to know that after creating actual zip backups that you were then able to burn windows CDs and use those CDs to later copy back to a zip disk which was still readable by the VS. Does that mean then that you had created iso images of the original zip disks, burned to the CDs? And is it possible then to do the same back to zip from CD? I don't know much about that - Or were you able to just use the copy/paste file commands in windows to copy from zip to cd and back again?
Maybe there was a difference in the way that Roland wrote a backup to zip that changed when they added CD write/read capabilities? Is that why copying between zip and windows was not only possible, but readable in windows as well?
Of course, the fact that you could play a song copy backup zip disk on the 880 is not of itself weird or unusual, but you must be marveling at the fact that you could do this with a copy from the cd copy onto the zip disk through windows and that THAT was still readable by the VS.
That is really interesting. You know, I've always heard that the VS could, at one time, output audio through the scsi port, too. It makes me wonder if Roland decided to purposely limit communication between a VS and Windows, rather than make them more compatible - as my memory tells me they alluded to aiming for in their early advertising...... or if that was just my reading of those ads, maybe... wishful thinking, before I ever owned a modern Windows computer designed for recording??
Sounds like your most immediate solution would be to find a working scsi zip drive and a scsi pci card for your Windows computer...
Edited by uptildawn (07/14/20 10:23 PM)
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uptildawn
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#1670958 - 07/14/20 11:15 PM
Re: Zip Disk Song Copy Format
[Re: uptildawn]
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simpleton
Space Cadet
Registered: 06/12/20
Posts: 10
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No sir, I did not need to do ISO images of the Zip disks. Just a simple copy and paste in the Windows file system. The Zip disk root directory (like below) contained all the song folders, a songlist file, and a system file.
When copying to the Zip disk, I would choose the "SNG CpyTarget=All" option (page 94 manual). Once the Zip was in the PC, the files were copy-able within Windows where I could transfer to a CDR. I could then copy those back to Zip whenever, fire up the 880 with the Zip, play them from the Zip or copy the songs back to the 880 internal HDD no problem.
And yes, I am marveling at that fact that not only could I read these files in Windows, and do this transfer, but also play the songs directly from the Zip disk. Because this is certainly not the case with the CF card. The CF card contains unreadable files that I cannot copy to Windows at all. And when I try to copy my old Zip backups I have to the CF card, the 880 does not even recognize that any of the songs exist - they don't show up in the 880 menu system.
I agree... Sounds like I might need to hunt down a Zip drive and some disks. Wow... ancient technology!
Zip drive root directory file structure:
SONG0000.VR9 (folder, 69 MB)
SONG0001.VR9 (folder, 43 MB)
SONG0002.VR9 (folder, 106 MB)
SONGLIST.VR9 (file, 1 KB)
SYSTEM.VR9 (file, 1 KB)
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#1670968 - 07/15/20 12:27 AM
Re: Zip Disk Song Copy Format
[Re: simpleton]
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uptildawn
Planeteer
Registered: 12/15/01
Posts: 9073
Loc: on land
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But you do know that a person CAN use a cf card to create backups from the VS and then extract the tracks in the form of wav files onto the pc by way of the VSWE tool....... I think you mentioned that you've done that yourself.
You can also use a cf card in an external enclosure connected through scsi and use it just as with the zip drive, or cd burner, or other external hard drive. In comparison, or contrast to the zip disk, the cf card cannot be directly read by windows, however, but only through those very few utilities such as VSWE, VirDIS and the Reaper .dll, whether you use it as an internal VS drive as you have, or as an external scsi drive as I have.
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uptildawn
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#1671008 - 07/15/20 10:08 AM
Re: Zip Disk Song Copy Format
[Re: uptildawn]
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uptildawn
Planeteer
Registered: 12/15/01
Posts: 9073
Loc: on land
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You know, my memory failed me on this one - The 880 os version change I spoke of needing to do earlier has to do with the difference between using the CD burner, or the DAT machine for backup. It has nothing to do with a ZIP drive. This may be a bit more simple than I imagined. I will still need to reinstall the scsi pci card in the old pc first, but it will be done - soon I hope.
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uptildawn
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