NIOA VS-880 TIP 100-0013:

Archive and Playable mode: explanation.

Can I copy a song to zip disk (archive) and copy from zip disk to tape?

Yes, BUT, you mention archive. Here's a few pointers on the subject ....

Lets take a song. Any song. Lets say it less than 100mb. The VS can copy this song to your scsi Zip drive, in PLAYABLE mode or ARCHIVE mode.

As a PLAYBLE copy, you could play the song back direct from the Zip drive instead of the internal IDE. As an ARCHIVE copy, you MUST load the song back onto the VS ide drive, or other attched scsi drive before it can be played.

An ARCHIVE song copy on a Zip disk CANNOT be read from your PC. It's a format that's NOT DOS compatible. Win95 will just tell you that the disk is un-formatted, and ask you if you want to format it. NO !!! ARCHIVE mode is used exclusivley for when your song size is 100+ mb, so the audio can span several volumes. So if your songs are 100+ mb, you'll have to store them on Zip Disks, as you can't transfer them.

A PLAYABLE copy. Try this. Copy a song less than 100mb from your VS to the Zip. Now, connect your Zip drive to your PC (my Zip stays permanently between the VS & the PC - this speeds things up by not having to swap from VS to PC to VS to PC, etc,etc). Have you done the Registry Update for Win95 ?? The one from Timian Heber's VS880 Resource Page.

You MUST use this fix on Win95, otherwise it will trash your Zip, making it un-readable for the VS (although, Timian has a fix for this on the web-site as well - allows you to fix/repair a PC trashed VS song / Zip disk !!). Once you've got your Zip drive connected to the PC, open Explorer, and look at the Zip disk. You should see files and directories (the "takexxxx.vr8 files are your tracks). You need to select the "root", all "files" and all "sub-directories" and then copy them to whatever destination you desire. ALL these files and directories make up 1 SONG. I treat it like I'm gonna take an image of the disk. Do all your copies 1 song by one (for ease of retreival - you can do multiple songs, but you must then restore ALL songs - this is too cumbersome. Singles are the way to go.

I have Seagate Direct Tape Access running so my tape is treated like a removable drive (I can copy files to and from tape in Windows Explorer). Will Win95 screw up the files or directory structure or anything? Will I just copy everything I see on the zip disk to it's own directory on tape?

Nothing gets screwed up, as long as you've used Timians fix ! .... and yes, just copy EVERYTHING you see to it's own individual directory on your PC (or wherever). Have a couple of goes at copying, backup to tape, restore from tape to zip, copy back to VS to ensure it all works as expected.

Kevin Wright

fluids@bell.dialix.com.au

11 Jan 1998


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