AlanSound Posted February 17, 2014 Report Share Posted February 17, 2014 Hey everyone, Today, my Maxx v1.3 started acting very strange. While recording, it spontaneously shut off. I figured it was a kickout from my bds but everything seemed fine and Maxx booted right back up. OK no problem. Well we keep shooting and then break for lunch. When we come back and I turn the Maxx back on, and it appears as though the CF card has been reformatted. No media, no Meta data, nothing. I do a test recording and a power cycle and everything seems fine with the card, but the original media is still missing. I roll a bit more on the card since I was in a time pinch and things seem normal. When I pop out the card and mount it on a Mac, the card is named Deva_Fat32 instead of the usual Maxx. When I open it up, there are no files or folders. However, if I get info on the card it says that 17 of the 32gigs are used. The card I'm using is a Lexar 32 gig and I've been using it for months without issue. So the media is there, just hidden or something. I haven't put it back in the Maxx since I'm afriad it will corrupt the card further. Has anyone else experienced this? -Alan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RadoStefanov Posted February 17, 2014 Report Share Posted February 17, 2014 Defective media...shit happens. Use higher quality cards next time... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Max Futterman Posted February 17, 2014 Report Share Posted February 17, 2014 On a Mac, enable hidden files and you should find them. Also check the trash when the card is inserted. To enable hidden files, look here: http://guides.macrumors.com/Viewing_hidden_files_on_a_Mac Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zack Posted February 17, 2014 Report Share Posted February 17, 2014 V1.3 perhaps? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jack Norflus Posted February 17, 2014 Report Share Posted February 17, 2014 I have never heard of any insistence where a maxx will reformat a card on its own - It is most likely a bad card. Regardless the beauty of MARF is the information is most likely still there and most likely recoverable. Call Howy tomorrow and he will be able to further assist you in a recovery. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AlanSound Posted February 17, 2014 Author Report Share Posted February 17, 2014 Thanks for all of the replies. Max, I enabled hidden files and still nothing shows up. Very strange, but I'll try again on a PC tomorrow. Jack, I'll definitely be contacting Zaxcom. Since there is data on the card I'm sure it can be salvaged. After I cloned the card as a fall back, I put it back in the Maxx. It reads normally and everything post-mysterious-reformat is still there and readable. Now I just have to figure out how to get the sound off the card. At least I can now do an real-time dub into my 788 if all else fails. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chase Yeremian Posted February 17, 2014 Report Share Posted February 17, 2014 I use Nomad but maybe the information I have will be usefull. From my experience, once you format your card to MARF format and you check the capacity on it, the card should actually appear to be full (my 32gb cards will say 31.xxxgb used even if there is no audio on them) I am not sure how this is on the maxx. I once had an experience where DIT made a booboo, long story short I formatted my primary card and just after was told a mistake was made when copying. I was able to grab all of the formatted audio off the card no problem using a tool zaxcom made Link: http://www.zaxcom.com/downloads/ZaxFile%20Deva%20Recovery%20Utility%20v5.05.zip Hopefully you can run this and get your audio back. -Chase Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wandering Ear Posted February 17, 2014 Report Share Posted February 17, 2014 The 17gb used on your card is the MARF half of the card. I also suspect you have a bad card. I've run into this behavior with the transmitters, and it's always the card. I would suggest in the future, when something funny happens, or things are deleted, change cards. Otherwise you may over write the original recorded audio accidentally, and then you will not be able to recover it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OmahaAudio Posted February 17, 2014 Report Share Posted February 17, 2014 If the files are important you could try some data recovery software. I've used PhotoRecovery from lc-tech.com and it seems to find everything, including audio files. If they're very important then try a data recovery service. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hal Posted February 17, 2014 Report Share Posted February 17, 2014 Hey everyone, Today, my Maxx v1.3 started acting very strange. While recording, it spontaneously shut off. I figured it was a kickout from my bds but everything seemed fine and Maxx booted right back up. OK no problem. Well we keep shooting and then break for lunch. When we come back and I turn the Maxx back on, and it appears as though the CF card has been reformatted. No media, no Meta data, nothing. I do a test recording and a power cycle and everything seems fine with the card, but the original media is still missing. I roll a bit more on the card since I was in a time pinch and things seem normal. When I pop out the card and mount it on a Mac, the card is named Deva_Fat32 instead of the usual Maxx. When I open it up, there are no files or folders. However, if I get info on the card it says that 17 of the 32gigs are used. The card I'm using is a Lexar 32 gig and I've been using it for months without issue. So the media is there, just hidden or something. I haven't put it back in the Maxx since I'm afriad it will corrupt the card further. Has anyone else experienced this? -Alan Yes...It's puzzling. I don't think I've seen anything quite like this before. I would recommend, that we put the unit back in operation and let it fail. It should then be a simple matter to track down the cause. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
howy Posted February 17, 2014 Report Share Posted February 17, 2014 The first thing you can try is a partial format. Go to the format page and instead of pressing the STAR key twice, press the right most PFL key twice instead. That will just re-create the MARF wrapper files without deleting any audio. You can then try Zaxconvert to get the audio. If that does not work you can use the Zaxfile_50x recovery software on the Zaxcom web site (requires a PC running Vista or XP). I have seen a little funkiness with certain Lexar cards here and there with both Nomad and MAXX (but not what you described). I would try to stick with slower Sandlsk and Transcend if you can just to be safe. -howy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rick Reineke Posted February 17, 2014 Report Share Posted February 17, 2014 Not familiar with the Maxx, but I've recovered 'lost' (no TOC) files with Piriform's Recuva. The 'lost' files normally have cryptic names so a deep scan and detective work is usually required. Don't know if Recuva has a Mac version buts there's other recovery apps available for Mac. Recording after an issue can overwrite a card's data that may have been recoverable otherwise. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Olle Sjostrom Posted February 17, 2014 Report Share Posted February 17, 2014 For me, TestDisk & PhotoRec (http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk_Download) have worked brilliantly for recovering lost audio files. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
studiomprd Posted February 17, 2014 Report Share Posted February 17, 2014 way to many folks: " Has anyone else experienced this? " Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bralleput Posted February 17, 2014 Report Share Posted February 17, 2014 way to many folks: " Has anyone else experienced this? " RTFM and contact Zax?Guess Mike is suggesting that?...Mike?Euh? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
studiomprd Posted February 17, 2014 Report Share Posted February 17, 2014 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AlanSound Posted February 18, 2014 Author Report Share Posted February 18, 2014 SUCCESS! The partial reformat worked great and gave me all of the sound from after the mysterious reformat. Thanks Howy! I then used the Zaxfile_505 recovery software to reconstruct the whole card and got the sound from before the mysterious-reformat. All metadata has been stripped from these files, but at least we now have the full production day in some form. So thank you everyone for the help, and lesson learned: swap out the media at the first sign of trouble, MARF is great, and don't let that Lexar card anywhere near the Maxx. -Alan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
studiomprd Posted February 18, 2014 Report Share Posted February 18, 2014 Alan: " and lesson learned: " the manufacturer has the accurate answers. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jack Norflus Posted February 18, 2014 Report Share Posted February 18, 2014 Great news - thanks for the update. This brings us back to some users who were (and still are) asking for an option for maxx to record just bwf - if that was the case Alan would have been screwed. So this is yet another example of how MARF can save your butt. Chances are I could go for a very long time without ever having to access the MARF files - but the fact that they are there gives me a lot of comfort. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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