Checking Integrity of P2 Card

L

ltf3

Member
Hi

Does anyone know how to verify that a P2 Card is functioning correctly?

On a recent shoot we produced 30 cards of Data by reusing 4 cards (4 GIG). Data was downloaded to an external FW HD on the set and verified by the camera. Of the 30 sets of data, 10 cards worth wouldn't import into FCP 6, or be recognized by P2CMS (no valid clips found). I bought a copy of P2 Log which also couldn't read the card data directly, but it's Clip Repair Wizard actually recovered 9 cards worth of clips (minus one clip...). Brilliant tool!

The 10th card of data is likely hosed for good.... that can't even be opened with the Mac OS... just crashes the finder instantly.

The camera was set up the same for all shooting and downloads, the same external HD was used, same cable even! By chance the *really* damaged P2 volume was actually dumped to two Hard Drives on set and verified by the camera on both! The P2 volumes on both are unreadable! So now I'm nervous that one of P2 Cards might be rogue.

So I'm looking for a way to confirm a P2 card's integrity.... other than just formatting and recording repeatedly on them ... short clips, long clips.... and seeing if all works.

I can't afford another repeat of the current situation!

Thanks

Lee
 
Did you perchance write-protect every card before letting the Mac see them at all?

There's a P2 Card Format Station program available for use on Windows systems that will error-check your card; you could have someone with a Windows box run that app on your cards.
 
You can use p2cms to look at the serial number of the card that took each particular shot.

I would use this feature and compare that to your card's SN to see if the culprit happens to be missing.

You mentioned verified on camera, what exactly do you mean by that? Normally when working with a p2 workflow you want to verify data integrity on the hard drives themselves.

it sounds like that p2 log recovery feature was a godsend. Good luck.
 
Barry_Green said:
Did you perchance write-protect every card before letting the Mac see them at all?

There's a P2 Card Format Station program available for use on Windows systems that will error-check your card; you could have someone with a Windows box run that app on your cards.
Click to expand...

Hi Barry

The cards were never in a Mac, nor was the camera connected to a Mac. So the cards never saw a Mac at all! The HVX was in PC Host Mode and a drive connected directly to it during shooting breaks. When data is downloaded to a drive this way, there is an option to verify the data copied to the drive against the data on the P2 card itself. I'm not sure I can ever trust it again though!

I've read the posts about write protecting the cards when inserting into a Mac computer (and we do sometimes do that via the Duel Adapter) but I didn't know they might need to be protected if dumping directly to a HD. I'll re read the advice again though to make sure!

And I will certainly track down a Windows box to error check the cards...

Thanks

Lee
 
Hey ltf3.

I'm currently having a similar problem with one of my 4GB P2 cards. i usually cycle two 4 gb cards. During a typical shooting day, one out of every four cards will be problematic. it's always card A. what happens is that during backup, the P2 Store we use locks up and reports an error, resulting in an incomplete dump. If you pop the card into a powerbook (write-protected of course) and try to copy it with P2 Genie either onto an external HD or just the internal HD, it proceeds to copy but then suddenly a DEVICE REMOVAL error appears and the P2 Card is unmounted -- this screws up not only P2 Genie but all other apps that happen to be running. At that point, the only option is to power-down by holding the power button (shut-down doesn't work).

Using FCP Import on the card results in the exact same Lock-up. So does copy-pasting the contents/lastclip items from the card to a local destination. P2 Log Pro's EXPORT to FCP xml feature also ends up with a sudden ejection.

upon closer investigation, 98% of the time, this error is due to just ONE particular clip. If you put the card back into the HVX and locate that one damaged clip, you can delete it and the card will backup as normal. Alternatively, if you know which clip is damaged, you can skip it and actually just copy-paste the MXFs onto your backup drive. Or, in FCP import or Log and Transfer, you can select everything else but that one culprit clip and it will unwrap normally without ejecting the card. What gives?

I'd like to know how you resolved your problem. More importantly, i'd like to know how i can be sure that it's the card that's damaged. has anyone else had experineces with card repair?
 
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