5.5 year old S9 card now "wrong format". What now ?

Yesterday my S9 auto set display "Card not readable". It's been inn place of over five years, and a month ago made an image of it on my Mac. Pulled out the card several times and re-inserted with the same error message.

What would you do now ?

1. Try to repair the card via a laptop?
2. Call ResMed ?
3. Screw it. Just insert a new card and use if you don't get a new error message. Doesn't the S9 store a year opt data, and it dumps it to the new card?
4. Restore from the one month old back up and insert that into the S9.
5. Other. What ?

Any problems using a 32 GB card, an overkill, bout will it cause problems ?


File/Folders on damage card (viewed on a Mac with a card reader):

DATALOG Folder (29.1 MB) December 2011
Identification.crc
Identification.tgt
STR.crc Yesterday
STR.edf Yesterday

If you didn't write protect the card when looking at it in the Mac, then the Mac OS wrote a little file to the card and the S9 hates that and wants to reformat it. If you have SleepyHead, then load the data into that and then let the S9 reformat the card and continue.

If you have been write protecting the card under these circumstances, then it may be that there is a data error on the card and either a complete reformat on the machine will fix it or the card needs to be replaced. Reloading the data from a previous backup won't be acceptable to the S9, or so I gather from looking at other posts on this same subject (I use PR machines.)

The total space you see being used on the card is about all the S9 will ever use on any SD card so a 32GB cared is really overkill. It will likely work though. I'd get a smaller one.

JDS74 wrote:If you didn't write protect the card when looking at it in the Mac, then the Mac OS wrote a little file to the card and the S9 hates that and wants to reformat it. If you have SleepyHead, then load the data into that and then let the S9 reformat the card and continue.

If you have been write protecting the card under these circumstances, then it may be that there is a data error on the card and either a complete reformat on the machine will fix it or the card needs to be replaced. Reloading the data from a previous backup won't be acceptable to the S9, or so I gather from looking at other posts on this same subject (I use PR machines.)

The total space you see being used on the card is about all the S9 will ever use on any SD card so a 32GB cared is really overkill. It will likely work though. I'd get a smaller one.

You misunderstood. The message came up spontaneously over a month after an image was made on the Mac. I backup the card several times a year making a master image dmg file. My Mac is not the cause of this issue. A master image even preserves the format.

I recall that a year of data is stored in the ResMed, and it will write it back to the card. The 32GB is the smallest card I have, and is only $9.

Bet my image file will create a usable card, but a month old.

SD cards can crap out or have maybe a very small area on the card that is damaged or whatever and the S9 will reject the card if it isn't just perfect.
You can try letting the S9 erase the old possibly bad card and start fresh with it but if the card is damaged it won't hold. Over 5 years with one SD card...time for a new card anyway.

Just use the 32 GB card and not worry about it. It's unlikely you could fix the bad card anyway.
The S9 will write to the new card whatever it has stored in its internal memory. You get what it stores and if you have the old data in the software it doesn't matter that it isn't on the SD card.

You can try putting the mirror image file on the new SD card but I don't know if the S9 will accept it or not.
I have tried doing that and despite making what I thought was an exact copy on the SD card the S9 still didn't like it and I was using Windows 7 which adds nothing at all to the SD cards to confuse the S9 machines.

Pugsy wrote:SD cards can crap out or have maybe a very small area on the card that is damaged or whatever and the S9 will reject the card if it isn't just perfect.
You can try letting the S9 erase the old possibly bad card and start fresh with it but if the card is damaged it won't hold. Over 5 years with one SD card...time for a new card anyway.

Just use the 32 GB card and not worry about it. It's unlikely you could fix the bad card anyway.
The S9 will write to the new card whatever it has stored in its internal memory. You get what it stores and if you have the old data in the software it doesn't matter that it isn't on the SD card.

You can try putting the mirror image file on the new SD card but I don't know if the S9 will accept it or not.
I have tried doing that and despite making what I thought was an exact copy on the SD card the S9 still didn't like it and I was using Windows 7 which adds nothing at all to the SD cards to confuse the S9 machines.

Thanks, Pugsy. Someone at ResMed said that if I try to use a card which was a duplicate of a month ago, the S9 will reject it because data is missing. He further said that the card is just a duplicate of what is in the internal memory of the machine, so that the card is a backup for convenience. He said that only up to a year is stored on the card and machine, thus reviving a card five years old gains nothing. Help! What's the truth here.

Even stranger is the the new card has been in use for two days, and in the datalog both days are seen. The only other files on the card are very small # of kilobytes. Yet the Rep said that the past year of data is also on this new card.

Cannot find my copy of ResScan nor Sleepyhead to see if a year of data is on this card, but the file sizes and the few seconds it took for the S9 to accept this card implies the card does not have a year of data.

Where's Mr. SleepyHead ?

I thought that detailed data from the past seven days is on the card, and not in the machine.

My understanding of the process as to writing to the SD card is this.
Once 365 days has rolled around the older data starts getting written over so you likely didn't have 5 years on that card anyway.
I haven't ever tried it but I suspect the same thing happens on the machine's internal memory.
I would need to have a S9 for more than a year and have the presence of mind to create a new user profile and import the data and verify how far back I went. It's just never been important enough to worry about so I haven't done it.

The only thing stored on the S9 is the summary data...that would be the AHI, pressure and leak and hours of use and maybe something else (depends on model I think, like I think my I:E ratio is part of the summary data).
The SD card absolutely must be in the S9 during the night to get any detailed data and even then the high definition files (that's the flow rate I think) gets written over every 7 days and the other data after 30 days. I just downloaded the other day and it had been 29 days since my last download. I only got the detailed graph data for the last 7 days. The other 22 nights show only summary data. Not the end of the world if I don't have those details so I don't care.

All this results in the SD card never coming close to being full and likely why your current SD card contents are relatively small at this point. With a new card inserted you only get the summary data that was on the machine and the it starts adding the high def data and the detailed data each night when the card is in the S9. After about a month the SD card will be about as full as it is ever going to get because old data starts getting overwritten.

The most recent SH version will now at least show the summary data from the old dates. Prior versions showed "no usage" at all for those older dates and ResScan needed to be used to get the data that was available.

And if all that isn't complicated enough....some nights I had the card in the machine and it for sure was recognized and both SH and ResScan will tell me that I didn't use the machine at all that night.
Not even hours of use got recorded in the S9 internal memory...go figure that one.

Sometimes I think we tend to over think this whole process because the end result is going to be what the S9 puts on the SD card and how diligent we are with our downloads and the S9 wants the SD card to be exactly as it expects it to be or else you get the "invalid card...do you want to erase" message and have no choice but to erase if you want to use that card.

Now the new Airsense machine....I think it does things more like the Respironics and doesn't overwrite that old data so quickly. Which would be kinda nice for those of us like me who don't do weekly downloads.
Might be a little "pro" towards the new AirSense model line.

Pugsy, you are awesome.

Now my new card (32 GB) is not being read by the S9… waited for 32 minutes. Maybe it's my S9. Should I reformat the original 1GB data card and see how it performs in the S9 ?

You can try using the old SD card by letting the S9 erase it and see what happens if you want to.
Won't hurt anything to try.
Don't know why the S9 now wants to get uppity about the 32 GB card because it shouldn't.

You know there is always the remote possibility that something is going wrong with the innards of the S9 in terms of writing to the SD cards. It's rare but it does happen.
You might want to be accelerating your thought processes as to getting that new machine that you are trying to decide on getting.

And just in case you are wondering what I would get...I am always up for trying the latest and greatest of anything. I love trying new stuff even if the old stuff works great....but that's just me.

Pugsy wrote:You can try using the old SD card by letting the S9 erase it and see what happens if you want to.
Won't hurt anything to try.
Don't know why the S9 now wants to get uppity about the 32 GB card because it shouldn't.

You know there is always the remote possibility that something is going wrong with the innards of the S9 in terms of writing to the SD cards. It's rare but it does happen.
You might want to be accelerating your thought processes as to getting that new machine that you are trying to decide on getting.

And just in case you are wondering what I would get...I am always up for trying the latest and greatest of anything. I love trying new stuff even if the old stuff works great....but that's just me.

I still favor the S9 because it's been so faithful, and I have many supplies for it. Also, no one has given a compelling reason to get the AS10. I don't need the wireless function, and the S9 can also be made to have the wireless feature. I've also found that "newer is not always better."

Now back to this data card issue:


The S9 didn't like the original card nor the new 32GB. So I erased the original 1 GB card, then did a sector by sector health check (on the Mac). PASSED. Formatted FAT32 with the Mac.

Inserted the 1 GB stick in the S9 ---> "unreadable. Do you wish to format?" Sure. It went on formatting for over ten minutes. So I then - - - - - - - - - -

What was done which solved the problem ?

I never use the computer to format my SD cards because these machines will end up doing it for me anyway and they know exactly what they like to have. It's double work for me and I figure I might as well let the S9/PR S1 do the work. I don't know if your Mac is putting that weird little file on the card that the S9 doesn't like. I don't do Macs at all.

I am uncertain as to your status of either SD cards that the S9 will accept.
Does this mean it took forever and finally worked or took forever and didn't work?

Physician wrote:It went on formatting for over ten minutes. So I then - - - - - - - - - -

You didn't say if it worked or not. If it worked then it obviously was this final step that worked since the machine felt the need to do it. It wouldn't have prompted you to do the format if it was okay with the card after you did the format with the Mac.
If it didn't work then you may have more trouble than just SD card issues.
The trouble might be in the S9 computer whatever that does the communication with the SD cards.

Pugsy wrote:I never use the computer to format my SD cards because these machines will end up doing it for me anyway and they know exactly what they like to have. It's double work for me and I figure I might as well let the S9/PR S1 do the work. I don't know if your Mac is putting that weird little file on the card that the S9 doesn't like. I don't do Macs at all.

I am uncertain as to your status of either SD cards that the S9 will accept.
Does this mean it took forever and finally worked or took forever and didn't work?

Physician wrote:It went on formatting for over ten minutes. So I then - - - - - - - - - -

You didn't say if it worked or not. If it worked then it obviously was this final step that worked since the machine felt the need to do it. It wouldn't have prompted you to do the format if it was okay with the card after you did the format with the Mac.
If it didn't work then you may have more trouble than just SD card issues.
The trouble might be in the S9 computer whatever that does the communication with the SD cards.

It's working fine now. Sector testing and reformatting FAT32 on the Mac is fine. Reformatting took 1.5 seconds. So what stopped the S9 from refusing to format/reformat/write to/read BOTH the 32 GB and the original ResMed 1 GB stick ?

I don't know, but just like in the world of computers, one reboots the device. So unplugged the S9 from the transformer, held down the power button for 10 seconds (sometimes this drains capacitors in a circuit), plugged in the transformer to the S9. It then formatted the card. When going to the sleep report areas it indicated "please wait" for about three minutes, then all the numbers filled in.

Will leave the 1 GB in place and use the 32GB for better purposes.

Wish I would have rebooted the S9 sooner, but this was a learning experience. Will try out an AS10 within a week, but favor the S9 which is still being sold by ResMed thus the supplies and repair support years has not yet been started, but suspect it will be until 2023.

From the past the way things work with the discontinued models is that support products are still made available for whatever period of time the manufacturer wants to make them available but production of the actual machine will likely end. ResMed isn't going to be manufacturing 2 model machines at the same time.
That's the way it has been in the past with any machine manufacturer...they discontinue production of one model in favor of the newest model. So the S9s now available will be the last of the S9 machines & humidifiers but stuff like water chambers and heated hoses will be available for a long time.
The filters work in both machines so that isn't an issue.

If you want to be like Den (Wulfman) and use the S9 for the rest of your life (he loves his old Legacy series Respironics and won't change) bear in mind that the blower and humidifier are indeed going to be out of production but the ancillary products will be made for quite some time. You might want to stock up on machines like Den has done. He could open a small cpap store with his collection of Legacy machines.

Physician wrote: So what stopped the S9 from refusing to format/reformat/write to/read BOTH the 32 GB and the original ResMed 1 GB stick ?

Beats me. This is where the aliens get blamed when there is no logical reason that we can think of.
Just like the aliens got the blame when my S9 said there was no data at all for a night that I know damn well I used the machine. Actually it said that for 3 nights in a row.
Maybe it is like a computer in that rebooting clears out the cobwebs and fixes something we had no way to know it needed fixing. It's computer software after wall that drives these machines. It wouldn't be impossible for it to have a few cobwebs that needed clearing out.
Now you learned something to try sooner than later the next time.

Pugsy wrote:From the past the way things work with the discontinued models is that support products are still made available for whatever period of time the manufacturer wants to make them available but production of the actual machine will likely end. ResMed isn't going to be manufacturing 2 model machines at the same time.
That's the way it has been in the past with any machine manufacturer...they discontinue production of one model in favor of the newest model. So the S9s now available will be the last of the S9 machines & humidifiers but stuff like water chambers and heated hoses will be available for a long time.
The filters work in both machines so that isn't an issue.

ResMed told me that support, repair, and supplies for the S9 will be available for eight more years. ResMed still is shipping the S9, but not manufacturing them. Once their supply is exhausted, the future termination date will be known to DMEs.

If the S9 supplies would work on the AS10, I'd probably get the AS10. Strange that the cost of the S9 = AS10.