S9 - How to fix a corrupted S9 data card

[dave21]

Did the unthinkable yesterday and accidentally corrupted my S9 SD card. When I inserted it back in my machine last night just before bed time it said FORMAT DATA CARD YES/NO?

I remember trying to do several things at once yesterday morning when I took a backup of the whole card and remember seeing a message asking me to overwrite a file which I thought was strange and I think I copied the data off the card and then copied it back. Surely that should be okay, shouldn't it?

After 6 or 7 restores last night I found out a very important thing, the card was corrupted. But I found a workaround to rebuilding the card that I thought I'd share with everyone here

1. All the Summary files are included in the DATALOG folder with the DETAILED files
2. If you Copy your entire card off, delete the contents and copy it back the card will not work
3. There is a system file called Identification.crc that appears to be written to part of the card and it has a checksum, so if you move it from the spot the machine writes it to then it will fail (almost like it's written to an area of the card and whichever sector it is written to it's included in the checksum file, so you can't duplicate cards easily)



The way I managed to get around it was to
1. Take another SD card and place it into the S9
2. Tell the S9 to format the card when asked
3. Take the card out and place into the Computer
4. Copy the DATALOG folder from your backup back onto the card
5. Do not touch restore any of the files in the root directory (they are not part of your historical data)

I then verified that I didn't lose any SUMMARY data by creating a new PATIENT PROFILE in ResScan 3.10 and importing the whole card.

I then placed the card back into the S9 and verified that it didn't ask me to format the card.

LESSON LEARNED! Be careful of your SD card that you don't corrupt it. If you do, follow the above instructions or send me a message for help!

Thanks
Dave

[bigk]

Dave - I don't understand why this even matters??

If you put in a new card, the S9 formats it right? and you can use it - right? So what is the problem? I just don't understand.

[dsm]

Dave - I don't understand why this even matters??

If you put in a new card, the S9 formats it right? and you can use it - right? So what is the problem? I just don't understand.

Dave was taking full backups of his cards but as he has explained. If you try to restore the backed up data to an SD card you need to get the S9 to format it 1st, then you can put it in your computer & restore the DATALOG folder he mentioned.

This problem won't crop up unless you like to backup/restore/manipulate your SD data.

DSM

[kf10]

Dave - I don't understand why this even matters??

If you put in a new card, the S9 formats it right? and you can use it - right? So what is the problem? I just don't understand.

I believe that when you use a new card, you will not have the 'detail' data, because those data are only available on the SD card, not on the internal memory.

[bigk]

I believe that when you use a new card, you will not have the 'detail' data, because those data are only available on the SD card, not on the internal memory.

Which is only a problem if you haven't already inserted the data into Resscan right? So if for examply, I use a SD card and I'm away from home for more than 7 nights (it holds 7 nights detailed data) I can put a new card in after 7 nights. When I get home, I can then download the first card into Resscan and then download the second card, all into the same patient file, just like I do now with the S8 right? So I will not lose any data.

[bigk]

Dave was taking full backups of his cards but as he has explained. If you try to restore the backed up data to an SD card you need to get the S9 to format it 1st, then you can put it in your computer & restore the DATALOG folder he mentioned.

This problem won't crop up unless you like to backup/restore/manipulate your SD data.

And I have no idea why he would want to do this.

[dsm]

Dave was taking full backups of his cards but as he has explained. If you try to restore the backed up data to an SD card you need to get the S9 to format it 1st, then you can put it in your computer & restore the DATALOG folder he mentioned.

This problem won't crop up unless you like to backup/restore/manipulate your SD data.

And I have no idea why he would want to do this.

BigK

I'm sure he does

We have had several discussions about using 3rd party cards like 8GB MiniSD cards in adapters & doing swaps with cards etc:

What he has found out is a big help to any experimenters as it explains how to get an SD card validated by the S9 prior to shuffling any files.

Cheers

DSM

[dave21]

BigK,

There are a number of reasons you might want to do this...

1. You want to backup your card just in case it gets corrupted later
2. You might want to restore your card to a newer card (perhaps a larger capacity card)

I was communicating with another new S9 member via PM's yesterday that didn't have a card reader, placed their SD card from their S9 into their digital camera because that could be connected via a USB cable and it corrupted the header files even though all they did was read the card in the camera.

There are numerous reasons as to why you might want to do this and likewise you need to know how to fix it or you might just reformat the card and lose X months worth of data.

For anyone that says "I've got it all backed up in ResScan" that's fine and I have that too, but some insurance companies may require to see a complete SD card for the last 3 or 6 months for compliance, likewise some sleep doctors. If they find that you don't have data for a month or a week they might not believe you thoroughly that the machine ate your data (akin to the dog ate my homework).

Thanks
Dave

[bigk]

BigK,

There are a number of reasons you might want to do this...

1. You want to backup your card just in case it gets corrupted later
2. You might want to restore your card to a newer card (perhaps a larger capacity card)

Doesn't make sense to me but if it floats your boat....

I was communicating with another new S9 member via PM's yesterday that didn't have a card reader, placed their SD card from their S9 into their digital camera because that could be connected via a USB cable and it corrupted the header files even though all they did was read the card in the camera.

OK - THAT does make sense!

There are numerous reasons as to why you might want to do this and likewise you need to know how to fix it or you might just reformat the card and lose X months worth of data.

For anyone that says "I've got it all backed up in ResScan" that's fine and I have that too, but some insurance companies may require to see a complete SD card for the last 3 or 6 months for compliance, likewise some sleep doctors. If they find that you don't have data for a month or a week they might not believe you thoroughly that the machine ate your data (akin to the dog ate my homework).

Thanks
Dave

OK the insurance thing also kinda makes some sense - but if you put a new SD card in the S9 it will format it and copy the compliance data to the card anyway won't it?

See I'm really not trying to be difficult but all the posts about this have confused the hell out of me - I just didn't understand at all why anyone would want to do this and as I know I'm going to want to put in a new card so that I won't lose data when I am on holidays, I was utterly confused as to what the huge drama is.

[dsm]

<snip>

I was utterly confused as to what the huge drama is.

BigK, whoose big drama ?

Cheers

DSM

[bigk]

Gee I dunno DSM - but threads about data issues on multiple threads and a thread specifically talking about corruption on cards sure seems like drama to me. (especially where if you actually use the thing as designed there is no problem)

[gpk111]

Good thread. I just got my S9 and jumped right in to analyze my data by pulling the SD card out of the S9 and loading the data onto the ResScan software. Thanks to all who helped me get out of trouble, since I used my camera as the SD card reader. When the camera wrote something onto the card, the S9 wouldn't read it. Forgetting about my adventures, though, let's step back and discuss design objectives. Here are some speculative points for comment:

1. Assuming you have no SD card plugged in, how many days of detailed data does the S9 hold? Hard to believe it's only 7 days???

2. I discovered that the S9 automatically loads the last nights data onto the SD card after the machine is shut off.

3. IMPORTANT: I also noted that it only loads data onto the SD card which hasn't been transferred already. That is, if yo decide to put a new SD card in, you get nothing but the new data. Therefore, try to keep all the data on one card.

4. Lesson learned: Lock the SD card before feeding it into any reader. If you then unlock it before putting it back into the S9, you should be good to go.

4. I assume all prior data stays in the S9. However, any future data is also copied to the SD card. It needs about 3 MB per day. That's a year of data on a 1 GB card.

5. Given all that, I guess the machine is designed to provide info for a doc at say 2 month intervals. Therefore the card is needed if the machine only holds 7 days of data.

6. If someone uses the RESScan software (not bad, by the way!), rather than depending on their provider for periodic printouts, it would be nice to know where the data is and how to back it up.

7. Questions: The ResScan software seems to do a good job of collecting the data from the SD card and adding it to the prior data set. Where is that data and how can it be backed up so that ResScan can read it if a hard drive crashes? ..or does the data have to stored on a drive in pieces and then loaded onto an SD card to be read by ResScan?

Thanks
Gerry

[bigk]

Detailed Data is 30 days I believe; Compliance data is 365 days and high rate data is 7 days.

My understanding is that the high res and the detailed data is only ever written to the card so changing cards obviously means that the "old" data won't be there on a new card. I amsure for compliance purposes for insurance and DME that the compliance data is all they need and that is always on the machine.

Clicking on Tools>Patient Manager will show you the location the data is stored to. I just back up the entire folder every day.

The only data that stays on the S9 itself is the compliance data.

I hope that answers your questions.

[dave21]

OK the insurance thing also kinda makes some sense - but if you put a new SD card in the S9 it will format it and copy the compliance data to the card anyway won't it?

No unfortunatley not, if it's already written to a previous SD card because it writes it out of memory and either appears to clear it or it knows it's written it once and doesn't write it again.

See I'm really not trying to be difficult but all the posts about this have confused the hell out of me - I just didn't understand at all why anyone would want to do this and as I know I'm going to want to put in a new card so that I won't lose data when I am on holidays, I was utterly confused as to what the huge drama is.

The problem is there are problems that people need to know about if they start reading their SD cards in their PC's so it's better to be prepared and know how to fix it than not to wouldn't you say?

[dave21]

Detailed Data is 30 days I believe; Compliance data is 365 days and high rate data is 7 days.

Detailed data gets erased by the S9 every 8 days, on a rolling 7 day cycle, so you have 7-8 days of the latest detailed data on the SD card.