Topic: Fostex FR2 LE recording interrupted by battery failure - any advice?

[radiovenice]

Hi,

I had a critical recording get interrupted due to an unexpected battery failure.  And I then compounded that by replacing the battery and continuing to record so I am not sure if my original recording may have been overwritten.  Any advice on tools that I can use to figure out if there's anything there on the CF card?

Thanks and no need to tell me how much I screwed up...I know, I know...

[sygdwm]

i doubt you recorded over your take. it is possible that there was no file, if it didnt save before ungraceful shutdown. hook it up to a computer and find out. or use a cf card reader. the one time i had batt failure it saved the file just fine.

[spcyrfc]

i doubt you recorded over your take. it is possible that there was no file, if it didnt save before ungraceful shutdown. hook it up to a computer and find out. or use a cf card reader. the one time i had batt failure it saved the file just fine.

check it out.  most devices have an auto save that will safe the files before shutting down.

[itsoktodoubt]

the fr-2le def has an auto-save feature.  ive had a couple of unexpected shutdowns due to the battery and it saved what i had recorded each time.

i'm not sure what other advice there is to give other than to look and see if the file is there.

[radiovenice]

+t for the super-quick responses

alas, no file when I hooked up the CF card to my computer.  I thought the FR2 LE had an autosave too, hence my nonchalance about the whole thing.

I used some disk recovery software at work (made for recovering pictures, not sound files) and found a couple of files that were unmarked on the disk but neither was the one I wanted and one was actually a fragment of another interview I had done earlier that was properly saved.  Otherwise, the disk appeared to filled with the electronic equivalent of confetti.

So now what should I do?

[spcyrfc]

is auto save of the fr2le a menu setting that has to be activated? i cant remember and  dont have mine in front of me now.

[radiovenice]

I don't recall any auto save option on the menus and I know the menu tree pretty well

[Belexes]

I'm at work now with my Fostex at home, but I too think there is an auto-save in the menus that can be activated. 

[radiovenice]

Just read the manual and went through my menus...couldn't see anything in either that says auto save.  Since just opening the CF card shows nothing, should I assume the worst or is there still hope deep in the card if I use the right software?  I use a mac too...does that change anything?

Thanks and +t to everyone out there for the speed responses...

[flipp]

The FR2LE does auto save. IIRC it writes the file once a minute so you should never lose more than 59 seconds*. Was at a festival Saturday and had my LE shutoff during the last act, restarted it and it shut off 4 minutes later. Swapped batteries and recorded the rest of the set. Got home and was missing less than four minutes of this artist. No problem since I also had the FR2 running; had planned to compare mics but forgot the FR2 was set at 24/88.2 and the LE was at 24/44.1. Using these particular batteries I got 3.7GB on one card at 24/48 and 1.6GB at 24/44.1

* Second Tip on page 62 of the manual: "The unit automatically closes the file every minute. Therefore, if unexpectable power failure or accident happens while operating the unit using the AC adaptor, you do not lose the data recorded before the trouble happens."  I found the unit works the same way using batteries.

If you have access to a Windows box, look at the card with a program named Stellar Phoenix. It has seen files I haven't been able to find any other way. Search TS.com for the name or google Stellar Phoenix, note correct spelling may be Steller Phoenix but I believe it's the former.
< you will have to buy the program to recover any files but you can download and run the program for free to see if it can access them, if it can't no need to buy the program, if it can only you can decide whether the data is worth the price of the program. Good Luck >

[radiovenice]

Hmmmmm, thats what I thought too but I can't find a trace of my file, anywhere (and no, I wasn't in record pause).  Running another disk recovery utility program a friend hooked me up with last night, all I could find were file fragments from stuff I had done several months ago (and at least a couple of card formats ago too - which means the card formatting is not very thorough)...

I'm trying stellar phoenix now, fingers crossed...

[chris319]

Try contacting Fostex technical support.