Using External Hard Drive - Caution

I wanted to make use of my 640GB Maxtor external hard drive (the Maxtor) that I've been using to store my videos to backup some of my laptop data since there are plenty of unused space available. I thought it would be best to partition off some of this unused space for this purpose so I started Partition Magic and the following message appeared.

"PartitionMagic has detected an error 110 on the partition starting at sector 63 on disc 2.
The length of the partition in the partition table is incorrect. The CHS length is 1250274627, the LBA is 1250263665, and the File System length is 1250263665. PartitionMagic has determined that the length can be changed to the correct value of 1250274627. Would you like PartitionMagic to fix this error?"

Without giving it a second thought, I hit the Yes button and that was a BIG mistake. However when I tried to create a new partition, it came up with another error message (error #2103) that a new partition cannot be created. So I just left it at that.

But horror of horrors, when I later tried to access the Maxtor with my HD2000 the dreaded message "Hard disk unavailable, would you like to format the hard disk?" (or something similar to that effect) appeared. Oh gosh, it seemed I have now lost all my videos! As a last resort, I hook up the Maxtor to my laptop and thank goodness, I could still access all the files there and open them. So the videos were still intact, only problem was that they could not be accessed by the HD2000. The only solution was to transfer all the files in the Maxtor to another hard disk and reformat the Maxtor using the camcorder. This I did and luckily there was only 130GB of data to be transferred.

Thus it appeared that by fixing the "error", Partition Magic has made the Maxtor HDD inaccessible to the HD2000 but luckily it was still accessible through Windows. I didnt' know what that error message mean but it must be something that help identified the Maxtor when the HD2000 is connected. Having transferred all the files to another HDD, the next step was to reformat the Maxtor by the HD2000. After this was done, the Maxtor was again functioning as normal. The final task was to transfer all the files from the temporary HDD back into the Maxtor.

This was quit easily done since I sorted my clips by date whenever I transfer them from the HD2000 to the Maxtor and the videos were store in individual folders named for the date e.g. 20090629 for clips captured on 29 June. All these date folders were stored under an ASSETS folder. First I transfer videos from a SDHC card to the reformatted Maxtor to create the proper setting. Then I just drag and drop each date folder from the back-up HDD into the Assets folder in the Maxtor. (You could just drag and drop the whole Assets folder but since it is rather big, I prefer to do it in small chunks.) This took some time though since there was about 130GB of data to be moved. What a relief when all was done and I found everything working as before.

Lessons to be learned? Well, never tamper with your Xacti Library Hard Disk (the one that is formatted by the HD2000 to store your videos) , especially the partitioning setting. In any case, I could not create a new partition with Partition Magic despite correcting that "error" and probably not with another partitioning programme. Correcting the "error" made the Maxtor invisible to the HD2000. If you want to use the free space, just create a new folder and it could be accessed by Windows but ignored by the HD2000.

Phew, what a narrow escape!

Ronald Kowk
http://ronaldkwok.atomicblog.hop.clickbank.net/

Xacti Library and External Hard Disk

One of the lesser known features of the Sanyo HD2000 is the ability to use an external HDD directly without having to use a PC or laptop for files management. Sanyo call this the Xacti Library and over the last weekend I bought myself an external hard disk to test this out. The unit I bought was the 640 GB Maxtor Basics HDD.

When the provided USB converter cable was connected to the docking station, the Xacti Library screen came on. As the HDD was not turned on, the following message appeared.

"HDD not on, disconnect converter cable if not using Xacti Library."

Once I turned on the supply to the HDD, the Sanyo offered to Format the hard disk. This was because the Maxtor HDD came preformatted in NTFS and the Sanyo can only work with the FAT32 format. The formatting took about one minute.

One this was done, I was able to transfer files from the SD card to the HDD. The process was a bit slow. In the case of a 8GB card, it took about 15 minutes for the actual file transfer and another 20 minutes for some processing; the screen says Sort by Date but dunno why it took so long. Anyway, it worked.

You can watch the proceedings from the LCD screen or from a TV if one is connected. One use of this will be if you are on a long holiday, you can bring along an external HDD and after a day's shooting, transfer all the videos from the SD cards to the HDD in the hotel and reuse the emptied SD cards for the next day. In this way you do not have to carry too many SD cards and the cost of a HDD is much cheaper than getting the equivalent capacity of SD cards and it is much easier to manage. The only downside is that you need an external HDD that is self-powered and thus only the 3.5 inch HDD can be used. It will be more convenient if the USB powered 2.5 inch HDD can be used.

You can watch any files from the HDD and also create and edit albums for playback. Files can also be copied from the HDD to the SD card for basic in-camera editing.

Here are the specs for an external HDD that can be used.

1. USB 2.0 compatible. 2. Powered by self power. 3. FAT32 format only. 4. A maximum capacity of 1 TB.

Looks like I need to carry some extra load for my trip to Turkey later this month. Sigh.

Ronald Kwok

http://ronaldkwok.atomicblog.hop.clickbank.net/