I am in the process of transferring most of the song setups and styles from the hard disk of my KN5000 to a 128Meg Sandisk SD card for the KN7000. As many of you know, KN5000 files are much larger than KN6000+ files and you can usually get less than 10 on a floppy. I had previously backed up my hard disk to my laptop and went through the process of editing the file names to long file names in anticipation of dragging and dropping them to the KN7000 SD card. Boy did I get a surprise when I tried to transfer the files. Those of us that are familiar with digital cameras and other USB stuff are accustomed to the camera acting like a disk drive for the computer and you can just drag and drop files from one to the other. Not so with the KN7000. So far, the only use I can find for the USB connection is to record digitally to the computer, which is much better than analog to the computer. But, not much use, if any, for file management. I don’t use mass memory much for sequences. I use it primarily for song setups that contain the style and panel memory settings for each song.

So, the process of transferring files means copying the files from the hard disk backup (in my case a CD) to a floppy and then doing a floppy copy to the SD card. For KN5000 files that means that you can copy five or six files to the SD card from a full floppy. You can’t merge a second floppy to the same SD card folder because the process deletes the previous stuff you copied to the SD card folder. In addition, the floppy copy can only work with the old-fashioned 6-character file name so any file names that are longer get truncated. So, I had to resort to copying a few files to separate folders on the SD card. Then, using the song copy utility for the SD (there is no move utility) I copied files one at a time from one folder to another to try to fill the 20 spaces on each folder. There is no utility to delete a folder so each file had to be deleted one at a time from the original folder that had been used. It may be possible to copy an empty (or almost empty) floppy to a folder to delete unneeded files. I haven’t tried yet.

This is agonizing. . . .

I have filled 30 folders of the SD card space. When I last noticed the memory readout showed that I had consumed 33% of the card capacity. Now I notice that the memory readout shows that I have 80864 MB free and I have used 0% (zero) of available space. Something wrong somewhere. The files are still there and everything works OK. It’s just the read out utility that’s wrong. Tomorrow I’ll add some more files and see if the available space readout fixes itself.

By the way, I am using a Sandisk Cruzer card drive (card reader) to backup the work I have done with the SD card to my laptop. The backup of about 40MB takes just three or four minutes. I really like the Cruzer. It’s small and works fine.

I hope someone from Technics reads this.

Well, I knew that I wouldn’t be able to sleep while thinking about the stuff above so I went back to the KN7000 and copied another floppy to the SD card. That changed the percent used to 1% instead of 0%. Not much improvement since it still is obviously wrong.

But, there is a way to delete an entire folder of the SD card. All you have to do is copy an empty floppy to the folder. That deletes all of the files of the folder. When I copied the empty floppy to the folder that I had just filled, the percent used went back to 0%. That must be a software glitch that needs fixing. It may have something to do with the fact that the KN7000 files are smaller (compressed) than the KN5000 files. When I edit the files and then save them in KN7000 format the space consumed is reduced on the SD card. That may confuse the algorhythm used in the "percent used" utility.

these points have all already been raised with technics. the easiest way to convert to 7k format is to drag to and from song manager, taking out non-used file types options. You will save a LOT of space compared to 5000 format. I only copy 20 files to a folder because my originals are all in 6X00 format and 20 easily fit on a floppy. You would be much better off converting to 7k format first and then copying, you won't have to do all the file moving on the sd card. Besides 5000 format will use up all your space unnecessarily. I also renamed everything with a hex editor in the kn7000mn.inf file, the long file names display perfectly. I did most of the work on the 8MB card, backed it up, wiped it, and carried on with new files. Then merged the backups and restored all the files to a much bigger card when I had seen how much space I needed and bought one.

used space on the card is different whatever method you use to look at it, if you try various methods in windows they give different results. I have not seen this problem, have you tried scandisk on the card? Try backing it up, formatting it in the 7k and then restoring it?

how do you drag and drop to and from in songmanager i certainly cant when i try all i get is the black refusal circle,i have just lost 7 folders trying to back up an sd disk onto cd i cannot find them any where.
i am using the 8mb sd but according to the computer it is 1.5mb used when it is supposed to be empty, i am not a computer buff but do i know a some and this songmanager is drivin me mad. eek eek:
can any one help?.PS(is my spelling right Walter) :

[This message has been edited by kozykeys (edited 10-09-2002).]

"You would be much better off converting to 7k format first and then copying, you won't have to do all the file moving on the sd card. Besides 5000 format will use up all your space unnecessarily."

I guess I didn't make myself clear, Alec. That is exactly what I do. I have to get the KN5000 file into the KN7000 before it can be converted to a KN7000 file. Once the file is in the KN7000 the most time consuming process has ended. I copy as many files as I can from a floppy. Then I edit the file name at the KN. Then I save the file to the same location as a KN7000 file removing those options like sequencer files that I don't need. Then I move the files wherever I need. The song manager is just too slow because I can only move one file at a time and the file transfer takes so long. And, unless I'm missing something, I am still limited to short file names which means that I still have to edit the file name and resave at the KN7000. I just don't follow the suggestion that the song manager would make things easier or faster. The things that I have to do at the KN7000 are still the same except for file moves.

I looked at the files with an editor and you are right. The names can be edited that way. But I don't want to confuse readers of this forum with that approach because very few of them have the knowledge to use an editor in that manner. I want to try to do this with the tools that Technics has provided.

I am not willing to risk the work I have done by doing a format and restore on my SD card until I get a second card. I'll try the backup and restore when I get the second card. I do backup the card to the laptop often as I do the file transfers. I'm not worried about the erroneous readout of space used. I'll tackle that later.

you misunderstand Bob, in 7k format you can transfer 20 files to a folder in one go because you can fit 20 files on a floppy. In 5k format you cannot fit 20 files to a floppy and thus have to do all the individual file copying and then deleting you talked of in order to fill a folder with 20 files. All this is unnecessary if you plan your folders in advance with the 20 files you want on each floppy. Then all the moving is not necessary. When I wanted 20 customs in the one folder, the individual moving was by far the most time consuming part of the job, therefore anything to remove this is a big bonus.

If you want to rename in the conventional manner on the 7k you have to load and save anyway but that's not what I described.

I've done many backups, merges and restores and it works well.

Kozy, a backup compresses into one file all the technics/midi/picture files on the card and saves it in a path you specify on the computer with a name that you specify. The contents of a card is not affected by a backup, only wiped with a restore.

the missing space is housekeeping space equivalent to the boot or fat area on a hard drive. It measures differently with every method you try...

I don't think I misunderstood, Alec. To do what you suggest means that I would have to first load each KN5000 file into the KN7000 and then save it right back to a floppy. That's two uses of the floppy drive. I would have to do this for all 20 files to fill a floppy so that I could then copy the floppy with the 20 files right back to the SD card. Somewhere along the way I would have to name the files as well. By the time I did all of that I could have moved all the files where I wanted them on the SD card several times.

Alec, Pardon my ignorance, but where is the KN7000mn.inf File ?

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Willum

Thanks alec
i can backup and restore now just needed a little help from the master.
thanks again
jan