"Session must be on an Audio Record volume" - Workspace info

[DigiTechSupt]

If you are receiving any errors regarding drives not being suitable for playback or not being an audio record volume, try the following:

In Pro Tools, go to the Windows menu and select 'Show Workspace'. In the Workspace window you will see a list of your drives on the left and to the right of each drive will be an 'A'(for Audio) and a 'V'(for Video) column. Under the 'A' column next to your drive it will probably have a 'T'(for Transfer) or 'P'(for Playback) - click on the 'T' or 'P' and, from the drop down list, choose 'Record'.

You should now be able to open, play and record in your session as normal.

If you're drive will not change to a Record volume, you may need to reformat the drive.

On Mac OSX - use the Disk Utility to reformat the drive as Mac OS Extended.

On WinXP - Right click on the drive in the browser and select 'Format'. File system should be NTFS and you can use the quick format option. All other settings can remain at their defaults.

[deejaydnl]

okay i have this same problem and i have searched the forums and cannot find an explanation on how to do this in detail...If someone could please help me out because i am new to MACS and have no idea what i am doing in regards to the disk utlity.i tryed the workspace suggestion and it will not allow me to change to record.thanks

[DigiTechSupt]

Can you provide specific information on your system - computer model, OS version, PT version, attached peripherals, etc?

The more information you can provide, the easier it is for us to assist you.

[K-Dogg]

I have just bought an imac g5 with mac osx and i am having the very same problem. In "Show Workspace" it will not let me change to a record volume. How exactly can i reformat the required drives? Any help will be much obliged!

[Alan Radmall]

Hi - I am having the same problem with my PowerBoo G4 1.6.
When I try to change the T or P to Record - it tells me this drive is not "a valid audio volume".
I hope your queerie will aslo help me.
I also have rec ently moved to Mac and need some help with formatting the drives.
Thanks
Alan - Cape Town

[Alan Radmall]

After banging my head all day I had some luck - the answer is Pro Tools LE 6.9 has to be upgraded to 6.9.2 at Digi's web site to run with Tiger. I did this and it solved the problem. I was able to covert my hard drive to "record" and it worked. Good luck. Alan

[Ideasite]

Here's a thread with some obvious holes in it:

1) What if you get the error on a drive that IS formatted Mac OS X Extended?

2) Does Journaling matter? Should it be on or off?

3) Why would Avid not promptly fix any software that requires the destination drive to be reformatted, since it is obviously screwed up?

4) Does version 7 fix this glaring problem?

[majestic]

I had the same problem when I moved to my new dual-core 2.3GHz Power Mac. I tried all of the above but it didn't help. However, I then tried reinstalling PT 7. After that everything worked fine and I was able to change the drive to "R".

[audioboffin]

1) What if you get the error on a drive that IS formatted Mac OS X Extended?
The drive can be allocated as a record drive under OS X.

2) Does Journaling matter? Should it be on or off?
Digidesign has supported journalling for a while now. Default setting is turned on in the OS disk utility for quite a while now too.

3) Why would Avid not promptly fix any software that requires the destination drive to be reformatted, since it is obviously screwed up?

These issues are related to drive permissions, more an OS issue than applications alone.
As the best way to defrag data drives is to copy the data off and format the drive, this shouldn't be a big deal anyway. It's certainly quicker in most cases than running a defrag utility, and definitely safer. After all most defrag utils warn the user to backup the data before they start..........

4) Does version 7 fix this glaring problem?

Drive permissions are there for security reasons and my guess is will be around for a long long time. Not actually a "glaring problem" per se. Think more a necessary evil, like locks are.

[politemusic]

Same problem here: my new Powerbook IS setup as Mac OS Extended with Journaling. Still can't get the internal HD allocated as a record/playback volume in the Workspace.

Any suggestions? Re-formatting the drive is out of the question for me, there MUST be a simpler solution.

I just installed the 7.0cs whatever update...should I actually uninstall my entire PT M-Powered? Any suggestions how to do that, and/or which files I actually need to remove?

Thanks,
Justin