P2 Store Acting Weird Can Anyone Help

[steadicamsteel]

I've owned a P2 Store for some 10 months now. I'm MAC based so I've not been able to update any firmware for the store. The only thing I've done to it when it came out the box was to do the muti button press to change it so that a mac could recognise it. P2 Card transfers are tediously slow (almost 4/5 minutes) to say the least but I am verifying the transfer so I can live with that.

Once the copy status LED's have reached 100% I eject the card, re-insert the same card and press the start button. The transfer LED's start to flash but then "hey Presto" the COPY STATUS is 100% Solid (as it already has the data). I do this last step for comfort more than anything else really.

Now here's the thing. I've just bought another P2 Store (secondhand but less than 5 months old). I picked it up from the guy who was selling it and asked if he was MAC or PC based. He's PC based so I'm assuming he's got updated firmware on this Store.

I stick the same P2 Card into the new store and it copies the card under 3 minutes. The verify switch is on at the rear. But here's the thing. Once the Copy Status has reached 100% I do my eject and re-insert the same card thing. What do you know, the Copy Status starts at 20% jumps instantly to 60% and then spends the next 2 minutes transferring the last 40% AGAIN.......Worrying.

I then do another card transfer (NON VERIFIED). It copies the Card over around 2 minutes I eject the card once it's 100% and then do my re-insert card thing again and bizzarley the copy status LED's Light up 100%. Which tells me it has copied the data succefully and can't copy the same files.

So why the long winded explanation of whats going on.....

I'm hoping someone somewhere can shed light on why the new P2 Store does the whole strange thing of copying the last 40% in verified mode. I can re-insert the same card time and time again and the store tells me it wants to copy more data. Has anyone else had similair issues?

[Barry_Green]

I don't know, but I would suspect that it's not actually copying anything, it's probably re-verifying. Making sure that the copy it thinks it has on the hard disk is bit-for-bit identical to what's on the card.

[steadicamsteel]

I don't know, but I would suspect that it's not actually copying anything, it's probably re-verifying. Making sure that the copy it thinks it has on the hard disk is bit-for-bit identical to what's on the card.

Wouldn't it then just light the copy status to 100%?

It seems strange that it does what I want it to do in Non Verified Mode but does this bizarre 60% to 100% Check/Copy thing in Verified Mode.

Thanks for the response anyway.

[Barry_Green]

But -- in verify mode, the copy process takes the system to 50% completion, and then the verify process is the next 50%. So I'm saying that it sounds like it's leaping past the copy process, and starting straight into the verify process.

With verify turned off it jumps straight to 100% because there is no verifying to do, so copying alone = 100%. With verify on, copying = 1% to 50%, verifying = 51% to 100%.

Again, just a guess.

[steadicamsteel]

Barry, that makes perfect sense. thanks for that. But I'm still worried that it's doing something that my Older P2 Store doesn't do and the older store gives me instant peace of mind when I re-insert the P2 Card for copying. Whereas the newer unit still wants to verify the copied data.....

Is there there anyway to do a Factory Reset on the newer P2 Store. Or can I backdate the firmware?

[Barry_Green]

I don't know...

So with your older one, if you have the "verify" switch set to verify, it doesn't do the 51%-100% phase?

[steadicamsteel]

Correct. It lights up 100%, do you have a P2 Store? if so what does yours do when you re-insert a copied card and press start?

[DCSensui]

Correct. It lights up 100%, do you have a P2 Store? if so what does yours do when you re-insert a copied card and press start?

My P2 Store behaves the same way as yours does. So I avoid re-inserting the card and hitting "start".

I was wondering about what looks like re-copying as you described, but now that Barry's explained it, the odd behavior of the P2 Store makes more sense.

[Overlook]

I can't help you but I have a thought. Try your workflow exactly as you describe but reverse the order of the two drives. See what happens. If you still encounter the same mystery, then you can say it has nothing to do with the drives but has something to do with the workflow of the double transfer.

[steadicamsteel]

I can't help you but I have a thought. Try your workflow exactly as you describe but reverse the order of the two drives. See what happens. If you still encounter the same mystery, then you can say it has nothing to do with the drives but has something to do with the workflow of the double transfer.

Read my first post. It explains what my older P2 Store does. I'm not trying to do a double transfer. I'm reassuring myself that all the data has been transferred onto the the store. That way I can confidently reformat the card and continue shooting.

I think it could be a Firmware thing on the Store. Damn Panasonic, if it ain't broke don't fix it.

Can anyone tell me if you can do a factory reset or uninstall the firmware updates on a P2 Store?

[town]

You might try reading the manual. Barry is right, when the verify switch is on the P2 Store will re-verify the data. If your original P2 Store isn't doing that I would suspect that the verify switch isn't working.