#1719140 - 03/01/21 02:43 PM
Determining hard drive capacity and upgrade
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dozen12
Billyaxe
Space Cadet
Registered: 04/08/07
Posts: 23
Loc: NY
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Hey everybody, currently I. Believe I only have the original 2g capacity because when ever it fills full of music and I cdr back it up, it fills about 2 gig.
I have obtained a 20 g hard drive and instructions on putting it in, then downloading a newer version of the software from Roland - because I have version 2.01.
But before I get that far my question is do I already have the 20 gig capacity but it’s not usable because of the software version or something with partitioning (which I don’t understand).
On my screen when doing a CDR back up it says:
IDE formatted 20.0 GB
Partition:
0/_/_/_/_/_/_
I bought the VS new in 98 and later had an expansion board installed. I can’t remember but maybe there is a 20 GB drive in there but not set up right? Can anyone help? Thanks. —Billy
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#1719143 - 03/01/21 03:43 PM
Re: Determining hard drive capacity and upgrade
[Re: dozen12]
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uptildawn
Planeteer
Registered: 12/15/01
Posts: 9073
Loc: on land
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You can begin by turning on the machine using the power switch on the back of the unit, while simultaneously holding down the track select and status buttons over channel 1 (hold those 2 buttons down until you see a screen display on the lcd). This key command will show you the true 3 decimal place version of your os. The 2 decimal display during normal bootup is not complete. At any rate, once you see the actual version number, you can power off the unit and then boot normally, if you want to.
Compare the x.xxx version against whatever version os you find on Roland's support pages online - look up support for your particular vs model - the 1680, for instance should be either version 2.024 or 2.5. If yours is not the same as, or is way lower than, the version for your vs, then you should probably download the appropriate file package and at least save it to your computer for later updating of the recorder.
If you are seeing multiple partitions and a 20.0 GB formatted message, you have a 20GB drive installed.
One thing you can do to verify what make and model drive you have, is to remove the hard drive from the machine and inspect the label on it. Do this with the power turned off and unplugged to avoid any issues that could damage the machine and drive.
The other thing you should learn to do is to learn how to access all of the partitions on your drive - it appears that you are unaware that your hard drive is already partitioned and for the largest allowable size (2.1GB) and most likely contains 8 partitions - the largest allowable drive space for the 1680, for instance, is 8 partitions of 2GB each, or 16GB capacity. This is, regardless of how large your hard drive actually is.
Your own particulars may be different than the 1680 I reference - you haven't mentioned which model vs you are using.
Hope this is helpful to get you going.
Edited by uptildawn (03/01/21 03:44 PM)
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uptildawn
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#1719274 - 03/02/21 09:11 AM
Re: Determining hard drive capacity and upgrade
[Re: uptildawn]
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drachir
Planeteer
Registered: 06/27/09
Posts: 59
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Just to add to what Uptildawn has said
This is what you have to do to access the other partitions of the hard drive
I work on an 1824, but the procedure should be similar if not the same
From your home screen, press "SHIFT" and UTILITY" to get to the Utility menu. Press "PAGE" to get to the 'hidden' second page of the menu and press "F2" for 'drive select'. You should then be able to change the specified partition by use of the Time/value knob.
I had a "D'oh" moment when I discovered that I had 8x more memory than I thought I had. I rarely work on more than a handful of relatively simple songs at a time, and having only 2G of space hadn't really been a problem. I know others have also been surprised when they discovered more partitions. These machines keep on giving!!
Hope this helps. Stay in tune
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#1719325 - 03/02/21 04:02 PM
Re: Determining hard drive capacity and upgrade
[Re: drachir]
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dozen12
Billyaxe
Space Cadet
Registered: 04/08/07
Posts: 23
Loc: NY
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Hello thanks for the info. I checked my op version and it is 2.010.
Yes I was totally unaware of the partitions. I have always been using just two gb and filling up then Cdr backing up.
My first question is do I need to upgrade the version to 2.024 to access the rest of the partitions? I’ll do it if necessary but finding a computer with a scsi card to get the software on my Zip drive is not easy. I have already grabbed the Roland version 2.024 if I can find a way of installing it.
I love the VS1680 work flow and as long as I’m able to access those partitions for more space, then I’m good to go.
Drac hit, thanks for the instructions on accessing the other partitions. More space would be amazing.
A few questions on how to use partitions Cuz I’m totally new at this. When I switch partitions will it clear my visible menu of current songs almost like a different drive? Or would I create a new song but pre assign a new partition?
How do you pre plan to have allowable overdub space before filling a partition?
Thanks —Billy
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#1719367 - 03/02/21 06:28 PM
Re: Determining hard drive capacity and upgrade
[Re: dozen12]
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drachir
Planeteer
Registered: 06/27/09
Posts: 59
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Hi Billy
As I said, I work with an 1824 so some things might be a bit different .. but...
Just a thought but have you tried initialising your new 20G drive? If you are working on anything on the machine you HAVE to back up, reinitialising will wipe everything. But this might find your missing partitions without having to upgrade the system. I don't actually know, but worth a try.
When you get to the IDE drive select page it should read
Partition
0/1/2/3/4/5/ (and possibly 6/7/)
Each partition is like a separate drive, as in you can only see one partition at a time - as in you can't have songs from two different partitions 'visible' at the same time. You can move songs between partitions using the 'Copy readable' option from the "SONG" menu
Good luck
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#1719383 - 03/02/21 08:21 PM
Re: Determining hard drive capacity and upgrade
[Re: drachir]
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dozen12
Billyaxe
Space Cadet
Registered: 04/08/07
Posts: 23
Loc: NY
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Thanks Drac. I just backed up all my data and can experiment with what’s on the machine. I have a big project coming up so now is the perfect time for this. I’ll do what you suggested and experiment with taking my current data and moving it to the other partitions to see how it works.
I’m not sure what initializing is, is that just a reset? And how might it bring about the use of the other partitions?
Sorry bout being a newbie to this stuff. I’ve used the VS 1680 for 20 years but never knew of these capabilities. The help is very much appreciated.
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#1719393 - 03/02/21 08:52 PM
Re: Determining hard drive capacity and upgrade
[Re: dozen12]
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uptildawn
Planeteer
Registered: 12/15/01
Posts: 9073
Loc: on land
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Now that we know you're using the 1680, we can be more specific in our suggestions - thanks for the info.
Your 1680 can format a hard drive up to a bit over 16GB. Your 20GB drive will be able to partition into 8 x 2GB sections (more like 2.1GB for the first 7 and the remaining going to the 8th - partition 7 by name), with the remaining 4GB (roughly) being unused and unseen. Your current drive is probably already formatted this way from the sound of it.
Look in the Utility menu for Drive Select in order to access all the partitions. You can select only one at a time and you will only see whatever songlist exists for the current drive, as pointed out by drachir. Each partition is populated by default with one new blank SONG.
You can use Song Copy Playable to copy over songs from one partition to another - say, if you needed more free space to add new tracks, etc. But in all sincerity, you should try to leave a few hundred MB of free space in any given partition as a general rule.
Also found in the Utility menu is the reformatting/initializing process. Be careful what/when you choose to format or initialize, because the process will wipe the entire hard drive and not single partitions. There is no defrag process and so reinitialize (of which formatting is a part of) is the only option you have to partition or resize partitions. It might also be your only choice to recover a drive that might become hopelessly corrupted. Although, the Drive Check process (also in the Utility menu) can often times fix certain file/data corruption problems without reformatting the entire drive.
When you first install a new hard drive, the first thing you will have to do during boot up will be to initialize and partition the drive. In almost all circumstances, you will want to set the partition size to the largest available (2GB in the 1680). You will also want to uncheck, or leave unchecked the two boxes for physical formatting and surface scan, since these serve little general purpose for us and take a VERY long time to complete!
There are many more things you can do to make life simpler on the 1680 and you really ought to consider keeping a physical or pdf form of the 3 manuals handy and consult them now and again to learn of settings and such. You can, for instance make a change to the display to show how many MB of space remain on your current partition, rather than the default - time, displayed in minutes. This option is found in the Global menu and is far more helpful to determine what kind of room you have on your drive than minutes, in my opinion. However and unlike with some global settings, this one doesn't like to stick (as you might expect from a "global" setting) and you will need to reset it the first time you switch to any new partition..... sort of a stinker, when your goal is to quickly identify free space to copy songs from and to.
Edited by uptildawn (03/02/21 09:00 PM)
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uptildawn
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#1719415 - 03/02/21 09:43 PM
Re: Determining hard drive capacity and upgrade
[Re: dozen12]
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dozen12
Billyaxe
Space Cadet
Registered: 04/08/07
Posts: 23
Loc: NY
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I just read in my manual about initializing and it seems like that is only necessary on a new drive. My 20 GB was installed about 20 years ago.
I followed your instructions and was able to caress up to 7 partitions. Wow! I can see the recording time remaining on each is 1081 minutes so that’s about 2 GB.
I don’t see any reason why the partitions won’t work. I’m gonna do a test recording on a different partition while leaving my old data on partition 0. You suggested a test of moving a song to another partition via the “song copy readable” button in the song menu. On my VS1680 is says “song copy playable.” I copied a song successfully to another partition.
This is great. I think I’m all good to go. Many thanks for the help. Any other advice before I go forward? —Billy
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#1719419 - 03/02/21 10:13 PM
Re: Determining hard drive capacity and upgrade
[Re: dozen12]
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uptildawn
Planeteer
Registered: 12/15/01
Posts: 9073
Loc: on land
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Good you're getting somewhere.
Your hd is 20 years old - 2 suggestions.
1- Since there's no way to defrag, it would be a good idea to reinitialize the drive. That will reorganize the partitions and clean up things a bit (I'm no expert, so forgive the lack of detail).
2- Set up the new hd, so it's formatted for the 1680 and then keep it, or the old one, around for a spare that's ready to swap out. That old drive will start to show its age sooner or later.
If you don't want to reinitialize the old hd, then it might be worth the time to run drive check on it - you might have to do each partition separately for drive check. Drive check will find and fix any possible corruption that may exist, even if it's not causing any issues right now.
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uptildawn
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#1719457 - 03/02/21 11:55 PM
Re: Determining hard drive capacity and upgrade
[Re: uptildawn]
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dkfackler
Planeteer
Registered: 04/24/06
Posts: 706
Loc: Coventry, OH, planet Thulcandr...
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Be aware, however, that reinitializing will wipe all data from disk.
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#1719556 - 03/03/21 02:22 PM
Re: Determining hard drive capacity and upgrade
[Re: dkfackler]
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dozen12
Billyaxe
Space Cadet
Registered: 04/08/07
Posts: 23
Loc: NY
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Thanks. Are there any other dangers or risks with initializing?
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#1719643 - 03/03/21 07:55 PM
Re: Determining hard drive capacity and upgrade
[Re: dozen12]
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drachir
Planeteer
Registered: 06/27/09
Posts: 59
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Yes
It takes forever!!
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#1719660 - 03/03/21 09:25 PM
Re: Determining hard drive capacity and upgrade
[Re: drachir]
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uptildawn
Planeteer
Registered: 12/15/01
Posts: 9073
Loc: on land
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Don't check the choices for physical formatting and surface scan and initialization will go very quickly. But do partition it to the largest choice available, regardless of how large or small the drive is, because the 1680 will then partition it to the largest size the hd is capable of using, based on the 1680's limits.
Physical formatting and surface scan would rarely be required, according to everything I've ever heard or read about it in relation to initializing a hard drive for the VS.
As mentioned - be sure that you have saved any SONGS that you deem important to some external media - cd-r backup is great, if you can do that.
And as for backups, I would recommend that you test any song backups by reloading them to a partition, or partitions, that have enough free space. This will give you at least some sense of security that the backups you made can indeed be recovered. When creating a backup cd-r, having "verify" checked is not a guaranteed that you will be able to recover at a later date..... It may give a sense of security, but only reloading a song will demonstrate that the disc and the burner and the VS are all communicating properly at the moment. Verify is also a slow process and in my own experience, has not proven to be particularly worth the wait time.
Edited by uptildawn (03/03/21 09:27 PM)
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uptildawn
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#1719971 - 03/05/21 09:15 PM
Re: Determining hard drive capacity and upgrade
[Re: uptildawn]
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dozen12
Billyaxe
Space Cadet
Registered: 04/08/07
Posts: 23
Loc: NY
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Thanks. I initialized and it took at 30 seconds. It said “Initializing IDE.” It did wipe all data as expected. Do I need to initialize any of the other partitions? I’ve never put any data on them.
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#1719973 - 03/05/21 09:27 PM
Re: Determining hard drive capacity and upgrade
[Re: dozen12]
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uptildawn
Planeteer
Registered: 12/15/01
Posts: 9073
Loc: on land
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Initialization wipes and partitions the entire drive. There's no method to initialize or even defrag individual partitions.
You will find, when you switch to another partition, that the 1680 has created a single blank SONG, so that it has something to "go to". You can use it, or create a new one, or copy a song from another partition, or whatever. The one thing you can't do is share partition and song space across partitions at the same time - Once you reach your max available space on any single partition - that's all you get there.
Get in the habit of leaving a couple hundred MB of free space on each partition - in fact, think of the hd as only a temporary place to store songs and back up your projects to another medium fairly regularly.
The 1680 DOES utilize all available free space on the hd, when you create a CD. That's the only time data can be shared across partition borders and that all up to the 1680 - not the user.
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uptildawn
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#1720205 - 03/07/21 02:02 AM
Re: Determining hard drive capacity and upgrade
[Re: uptildawn]
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dozen12
Billyaxe
Space Cadet
Registered: 04/08/07
Posts: 23
Loc: NY
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Many thanks for the advice. I’m all set and ready to move on to a big recording project which will make use of the extra partitions. —Billy
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#1751221 - 09/28/21 09:13 PM
Re: Determining hard drive capacity and upgrade
[Re: uptildawn]
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blue print
Planeteer
Registered: 12/02/02
Posts: 239
Loc: The Netherlands
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uptil dawn,
You make backups on CD. I wonder if you can read this CD into Windows to make an ISO file so that you can make a fresh CD of it later? I use an external scsi hd which I connect to windows via a usb-scsi cable. Only the first 4 partitions are accessible via windows, the data of which I copy on my PC in separate folders that I store in zip files.
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blue print
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#1751231 - 09/28/21 09:49 PM
Re: Determining hard drive capacity and upgrade
[Re: blue print]
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uptildawn
Planeteer
Registered: 12/15/01
Posts: 9073
Loc: on land
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Yes Blue,
I just confirmed that I can make an iso file from a backup dc and then burn that to a blank cdr/w and that it loads into the 1680 without issue.
I used a Win7/32 bit pc and ImgBurn (2.5.8.0) to create an iso file, stored to the pc. Then, I used ImgBurn again to burn the iso image to a blank cdr. I wanted to create and burn the iso to disc in one step, but apparently ImgBurn doesn't do that - not a big deal. Although it hesitated quite a bit before creating and then again before loading the iso, the whole process really only took less than 10 minutes (maybe less than 6 minutes) to create/burn a 300MB image.
I used to use an external hd and go back and forth between pc and vs, but ran into problems somewhere along the way - Besides the issue of having to shuffle partitions in order to get past the 4 partition limit, I also recall eventually having problems with my use of an A/B switch to go between vs and pc smoothly (worked really well for a long time) and then I also fried 2 of my vs drives one day when attempting to use a usb-ide adapter tool during some period of experimenting. That put an end to the experiments, since I think I lost some really important SONGS in the process - songs that for whatever reason, I don't seem to have backups for... It's been so many years ago now that I don't even bother to pine over it anymore.......
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uptildawn
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