ZOOM h1 - ISSUE - VERY IMPORTANT

G

gjewude

New member
Hi ! I'm new so I'm gonna introduce myself :)
I'm Markus and I'm 21 yrs old... but that actually doesn't matter

So I'm from Poland and therefore sorry for my english
anyway if this thread is in a bad section please don't delete it, just move it somewhere else, cuz I need an answear, besides I don't have much time to analyse where to post it ;p :)

So..
I'm making a full lenght movie with my friends. We were shooting for about 11 hours (which is about 3 minutes of the movie)... We were recording, the sound with a ZOOM h1 handy recorder... but unfortunately noone knew that we have to format the card with the device, not with the pc nor mac. Anyway, after we have copyied the files to our PC, all the files were empty (file size 0 kb) - the ZOOM itselfs shows an error during playback. How we can fix those files, recover them or something else ?? is there such a possibility ? our zoom is working on the stock mini sd card

hope to hear from you guys
 
From the sound of that you may just be out of luck. Formatting the card with any computer should have worked though, flash cards use FAT32 which both Macs and PCs can read/write to.

A last thing to try though, instead of plugging your flash card directly into your computer, connect the zoom to the computer and try downloading the files through there.

This is why it's a good idea to always test gear yourself before you get to shooting with it though.
 
What Gohanto said about testing the gear yourself before shooting is great advice! I'd also add do a playback near the beginning of the shoot day to confirm that you're recording something on the recorder and that it is what you think it is. Be sure to monitor the recording as its going down as well. Don't know if you actually recorded anything if the file size is showing as 0. Good luck!
Bernie
 
@Gohanto, We were formatting the card with a Mac, after the error has occured, we have checked some forums, and there where similiar topics like this (but no solution at all), someone has written that the ZOOM h1 has a bug in the software which doesn't allow you to format this device with any pc or mac, just only with the zoom itself. Hmm... Anyway, in the future I'll check the recordings one by one though... According to this topis I have mentioned before, thoose guys have written, that there could be a possibility to recover the files with a special program, I've tried, and all files got their proper weight (like from 7Mb to ~40Mb) after running them, I've heard only weird sharp sounds. What do you guys think about it ?
 
gjewude said:
@Gohanto, We were formatting the card with a Mac, after the error has occurred, we have checked some forums, and there where similar topics like this (but no solution at all), someone has written that the ZOOM h1 has a bug in the software which doesn't allow you to format this device with any pc or mac, just only with the zoom itself. Hmm...
Click to expand...

I always always always only format the card in the recorder, even if I have previously formatted it in a computer. It's the only safe way to operate.
 
"Weird sharp sounds" sounds like a file/format problem. I was going to suggest what you just did, using recovery software. 0 byte files often mean that the directory is screwed up but the files actually exist. As a general rule if you get a directory entry at all the device wrote a file.

The problem you may have now, I say may because there is also the possibility that what you have is garbage, is that the header info was lost.
IF that is the case it is fixable with software that either can rewrite the header or sound software that can import the files as raw audio. In both cases you need to know the format the file should be, bit depth, sample rate, etc. Once you give that a try you will know if the data got scrambled or if you just lost the header. I have recovered files this way. It's a big pain in the butt but it does work. Sound Forge is one app on Windows that will let you import raw files.
 
Noiz2 said:
the header info was lost.
IF that is the case it is fixable with software that either can rewrite the header or sound software that can import the files as raw audio. In both cases you need to know the format the file should be, bit depth, sample rate, etc. Once you give that a try you will know if the data got scrambled or if you just lost the header. I have recovered files this way. It's a big pain in the butt but it does work. Sound Forge is one app on Windows that will let you import raw files.
Click to expand...

This is EXACTLY what I was thinking. I've seen this happen waaay back in the day with the Deva 2, and I was able to recover the files, although, like you said, it was a pain the butt. So, all may not be lost.
 
sanmiguel82 said:
Hello gjewude, I have thought the same problem, can you tell me the program you used to recovery the file size. thanks
Click to expand...

Did you try anything simple yet, like plugging into USB straight from the recorder? (Which I believe is the preferred method with the Zoom?)...

GJ
 
A Solution Maybe

A Solution Maybe

I've just bought the Zoom H1 and was also having trouble recording wavs. I was able to record MP3s only. So I tried reformatting the card as a MS-DOS (FAT), and problem persisted. So I formatted the card as an Apple formate, Mac OS Extended (Journaled). After switching the H1 on it prompted me to reformat the card. After this, it work fine.

Hope this helps.

Nev.
 
gjewude said:
@Gohanto, We were formatting the card with a Mac, after the error has occurred...
Click to expand...
Formatting AFTER recording to any media is pretty much guaranteed to completely remove any trace of the file or the data. NEVER recommended to FORMAT a card that you are trying to recover data from.

... According to this topis I have mentioned before, thoose guys have written, that there could be a possibility to recover the files with a special program, I've tried, and all files got their proper weight (like from 7Mb to ~40Mb) after running them, I've heard only weird sharp sounds. What do you guys think about it ?
Click to expand...
It is a miracle that you got anything at all after formatting the card. If none of the popular recovery programs could get anything, it seems like you have no audio.

Note: You might want to use a better subject line in the future. Everyone here has an "issue" so that is redundant. And most of them are "very important", so that is also redundant, but then you have said nothing about what the problem IS. For example, I would use something like: "Recover data from un-formatted Zoom H4n card?"
 
Media cards should always be formatted in the recorder in which it will be used (or at least the same make and model) The same goes for many digital cameras .. kind of a no-brainer these days.
For sure, formatting after the fact will almost certainly guarantee unrecoverable data
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top