Lost install? PT5

[roderickelms]

We just had one of our PT5 install floppies become unreadable prior to using it to de-authorise our main drive for optimising.

Does anyone know whether we can deauthorise onto the other (backup) floppy and regain the install?

In other words, will the other floppy accept a second install and register it?

Rod
Redbridge Recordings - London

[Gary Stadler]

Rod- It should work for you that way. The other floppy will say "you now have a count of two" when you're done... Just make sure that whatever happened to floppy #1 does not happen to floppy #2.....I used to do this all the time on my old PT system. havn't needed to try it on the mixplus...

Come to think about it, reading your comment about optimizing your main drive....in my book, the "main drive" should contain your system software, your applications, and NOTHING else. ALL data should then be contained on secondary, large drives, and this rule should be strictly adhered to.
As such, your main drive should go forever and never NEED optimizing, because once all your software is loaded on it in the first place, over time nothing should change on that drive because it should never be "used" as a depository for day-to-day data.


My main drive has been around intact for three years now, and if I check it with Norton speed-disc, it is not the slightest fragmented!
You should never need to defragment your "main drive" if you are doing things correctly in the first place....


[This message has been edited by Gary Stadler (edited April 16, 2000).]

[roderickelms]

Thanks Gary - I try it.

You are, of course, correct in what you say about disc organisation but as a result of a rather unusual set of circumstances, we were forced to save some sessions on the main drive containing ProTools!

By the way, I originally made this enquiry of Digi here on three occasions and have, to date, not even received an acknowledgement. I hoped they might also provide a replacement disc!

[This message has been edited by Rod (edited April 15, 2000).]

[Avid]

I'm sure we can provide you with a replacement disk, but you would need to contact Customer Service directly with your request in order for them to help you.

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Bruce Paine
eMarketing

[roderickelms]

Thanks Bruce. I have already made 3 attempts to contact the UK office but, as mentioned in my previous posting, I don't get any sort of reply, hence this correspondence.

Can you provide an email address which might help?

Also, can you confirm Garry's helpful note that I should be able to save the existing intall key by deauthorising to our other floppy, which already has the backup install on it?

[editor]

Rod,

As far as I know and from my experience, an install from one disc, wants to "go home" to the same disc. I have never had any luck trying to pull installs off with anything other than the very disk that installed the authorization in the first place.

A word of caution here, if a floppy drive eats a disk, I throw that same drive out the door, the same day. In my experience once a floppy drive is a disk eater, always a disk eater.

With all the hub bub, about usb floppy drives, G3's and G4's etc., I keep a Mac with a new floppy drive as an "install station" and keep four gig external drives as "authorized drives" to move authorizations about at will.

Regards

e

[Avid]

Contact information for the UK office:

UK and Ireland

Avid Technology
Westside Complex
Pinewood Studios
Pinewood Road
Iver Heath, Bucks SLO ONH
UK

Technical Support Hours
10:00AM-6:00PM (GMT) Mon - Fri
Phone: 44 (0)1753 653 322
Fax: 44 (0)1753 658 501
Email: [email protected]

I would recommend a phone call in your case as probably the most expedient method of resolving the problem.

I agree with Editor on the authorization needing to return to the original disk. I've never seen it work otherwise and have often received the "please insert your original disk" message or something like that when trying to use the wrong disk to retrieve an authorization.

If you haven't already done so, I would first recommend that you try putting your key disk in a different computer and see if it is still unreadable. I have an 8600/300 here at home that I bought about 3 years ago. From the moment I bought it, the floppy drive did not work right. It took forever to read most floppies, and couldn't recognize most authorization disks in particular. Having several external drives and a few other computers, I just used those for workarounds thinking I would eventually return the unit to Apple and get it fixed. But once it was out of warranty, I forgot about it.
Then a couple of months ago I removed the floppy drive and sprayed the heck out of it with a can of electronics cleaner. I let it dry overnight just in case and put it back in. It works perfectly now. Apparantly it shipped with some sort of dirt or dust or particle of some sort fouling it up, and I just assumed the unit was bad.
An anecdotal incident that probably has nothing to do with your situation, but worth checking. I've found (in my experience anyway) that something actually corrupting a floppy is not that common, unless it's caused by a virus.
It's also not that unusual that a floppy drive will read some floppies and not others, since disk duplicators can have slight differences in alignment compared to your drive. Floppy drives can also get "out of alignment", but I don't have any personal experience with re-aligning one.

In any case, if it turns out you do have a bad disk,(and that may well be the case) call the Pinewood office and request a replacement. Sometimes email , faxes, or phone messages stack up during especially busy times, so I would opt for speaking to someone directly that can help you right then.

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Bruce Paine
eMarketing

[meshtheflesh]

You can optimize a disc with authorizations. I did it the other day, and on many occasions. I use my internal drive for movies a stuff, so it can get fragmented.

Someone tell me if I am wrong.

[editor]

Hello meshtheflesh,

One improvement made to Norton after 2.X was the ability defrag a disc with installs on it.

Regards

e

[roderickelms]

Thanks everyone. We're particularly intersted to learn that Norton is now safe to run with authorisations installed. We still read warnings about this and religiously deinstall everything. Maybe we should stop worrying. Unfortunately this arcane system of protection causes GREAT inconvenience when it goes wrong!

Bruce - that's for your thoughts. I have already tried the disc on two other Macs and both find it unreadable. The 9600 internal floppy drive reads all other floppies quite happily and without hesitation.

I'm sure it's the disc but goodness knows why as we store them with due regard to magnetic and other hazards.

Will try again to contact Pinewood.

Thanks ...