Digi Cart™/II Disk Fragmentation
After extensive use in applications where many audio Cuts have been recorded and many but not all of them have been erased, many small unused spaces can develop on the hard drive. As with all disk based computer systems, the resulting unused spaces create disk fragmentation.

Reformatting and reloading the drive eliminates this condition. When reloading the material, first load Cuts that will be retained for a long time, then load Cuts that are more temporary.

Because the defragmentation process can be time consuming, the following suggestions are made to allow work to progress immediately until the drive can be reformatted. It is suggested that drives be reformatted periodically to prevent excessive fragmentation.

Fragmentation can lead to the following problems:

When Record is activated, the unit takes a long time to set up, or displays the message "DISK ERROR".

These symptoms can be temporarily overcome by the use of the Record Time Limit options in the Setup Menu. With Record Time Limit set to NONE, the DigiCart/II tries to allocate all the space left on the disk in preparation for the recording. If the disk is fragmented, this can take a while, and in severe cases lead to a disk error when the number of spaces on the disk exceeds an allowable limit. With a Record Time Limit in effect, the allocation is limited to that amount of time, easing the requirements on the file system.

1. Press the Setup Menu button.
2. Using the Select knob, select RECORD TIME LIMIT.
3. Press the Left Arrow key. NONE will be replaced by 60 MIN. If you never create recordings that long, press the Left Arrow key repeatedly to select 30 MIN, 5 MIN or 1 MIN. The shorter the time, the faster the unit will get ready to record.
4. Press the Enter/Yes key.

The DigiCart/II should now be able to go into record quickly. The system allows a 10% margin in the record time, so for instance a setting of 1 minute will actually allow a 1:12 recording.

D-NET File transfers fail due to timeout errors.
The File transfer process allows a certain amount of time for the receiving unit to create a file on disk to receive the incoming file. If the disk is fragmented this can take longer than the time allowed, resulting in an error message on the receiver "DATA OVERRUN ERROR" or "TIMEOUT ERROR".

The temporary fix for this is to transfer files to the Bernoulli or Zip drive.

Presets assignments are lost or mixed up.
Re-assigning the Presets will usually fix the problem in the short term.

Preventing Fragmentation
When producing new material, use the Bernoulli or Zip Drive if you will be recording and erasing frequently so that repeated erasures do not cause unnecessary fragmentation of the hard drive.

As mentioned above, schedule times to back up and reformat the hard drive. Keeping backup material current during the course of everyday operations can ease this process.

An external hard drive can be used to back up the contents of the unit. This has the added advantage of immediate recovery in the event of an internal hard disk failure. This is especially critical if Presets are used, as Cuts assigned to Presets must reside on a hard drive. 360 Systems offers the HDS Hard Disk Enclosure System which allows connection of up to 5 additional drives to the DigiCart/II.

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