NIOA VS-880 TIP 610-0002:

I ran Initialize Drive, can I recover ?

I'm terribly sorry to hear that, this happened to me once and I'll never forget it.

Based on my knowledge, there is no way to unformat or undelete data that resides on the internal IDE. This is because the VS-880's IDE format is proprietary, unlike its SCSI format, which is DOS compatible. However, if you are using a SCSI drive you may be able to recover the data using an "undelete" utility such as Norton's Unerase, but your chances for total recovery could be slim (I have not tested this enough to know if it can work). The likelihood of an undelete utility working depends on how the VS manages its directory. If it's similar to DOS, then your chances are fair.

An "unformat" utility will probably worsen the situation since you "initialized" the drive and did not format it. 'Initialize' is either a macro (a sequence of commands), or a low-level table update procedure (or both) performed by the VS-880 that deletes all of the data (or rather, references to the data), and possibly, creates two system files. It will also create a default song (SONG0000.VR8) as long as you initialized from the drive (or initialized from another drive and later selected the empty drive --at this point you will certainly have two system files residing in your root directory).

What all this means is that 'intialize' can lessen your chances of total recovery by creating new files on top of your deleted files, so to speak.

Again, if you initialized your IDE you will not be able to recover your songs. If we're dealing with a SCSI drive, then here are the steps to follow:

1. Connect the drive to a PC (via SCSI, parallel port, whatever you can provide)

2. Boot up using a DOS version of 5.0 through 6.22. If you can't boot up using a DOS version lower than 7.0 (Win95), then make sure you boot up to the command prompt (F8 for Win95 Startup Menu) - OR - Make sure your Win Registry is setup to disable volume tracking for Roland VS-880 disks. Note: later versions of Win95 may require you to use the LOCK command in order to allow direct disk access for utilities such as Norton Unerase for DOS ( eg: LOCK G: )

3. Select the drive and run the undelete utility. I only use Norton Unerase, and occasionally DOS' UNDELETE for stuff that's not too critical. I can't recommend anything else since my experience is limited with other software apps.

4. From this point, the undelete program should be able to guide you through the next sequence of steps necessary to recover the deleted files.

MegaChew

MegaChew@aol.com

1998/01


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