Sleepyhead question

I'm interested in using the sleepyhead software but am concerned about something I think I read in the instructions.

I'm on a Phillips Respironics System One bipap machine. If I understood the instructions correctly, if you're using a PR System One (I presume this is the same machine) then you have to be sure to lock the memory card as sleepytime will write something on the card otherwise. Then if the card is written on, the bipap machine won't read it.

Given the likelyhood that I'll forget to lock the memory card, I'm concerned that I'll do something that'll cause problems in my bipap machine's recording/reporting routine.

Is the locking of the memory card for Phillips Respironic System One bipap machines a requirement?

If I were to forget to lock the card, would it be a simple matter of deleting some files?

With the machine, I can use sleepmapper software which is very limited. I'd like to know more about what's going on.

I have a pr760 bipap and use sleepyhead .... locking the card is not necessary.
That warning applies mostly to Resmed machines. It will not hurt to lock the card .... just remember to unlock it when returning it to the machine.

I use a PR machine and SleepyHead. I've never locked my card and never had a problem. I download my data every morning, take a look, then pop the SD card back in my machine. I recently turned the SD card in to my DME/sleep doc for my 2 month check-up, and they had no problems getting the info from it using a different program.

You are getting it confused with the Resmed products. PR System One does not care if you put extra files on the disk..


I wish you well

Bill44133 wrote:You are getting it confused with the Resmed products. PR System One does not care if you put extra files on the disk..


I wish you well

Thanks

JimP wrote:I'm interested in using the sleepyhead software but am concerned about something I think I read in the instructions.

I'm on a Phillips Respironics System One bipap machine. If I understood the instructions correctly, if you're using a PR System One (I presume this is the same machine) then you have to be sure to lock the memory card as sleepytime will write something on the card otherwise. Then if the card is written on, the bipap machine won't read it.

*NO*!

Sleepyhead *NEVER* *NEVER* *NEVER* EVER writes to your sd card. NEVER.

some *OPERATING SYSTEMS*, like windows 8 and macos WILL write to it, and that annoys RESMED machines, not yours.

palerider wrote:

JimP wrote:I'm interested in using the sleepyhead software but am concerned about something I think I read in the instructions.

I'm on a Phillips Respironics System One bipap machine. If I understood the instructions correctly, if you're using a PR System One (I presume this is the same machine) then you have to be sure to lock the memory card as sleepytime will write something on the card otherwise. Then if the card is written on, the bipap machine won't read it.

*NO*!

Sleepyhead *NEVER* *NEVER* *NEVER* EVER writes to your sd card. NEVER.

some *OPERATING SYSTEMS*, like windows 8 and macos WILL write to it, and that annoys RESMED machines, not yours.

Just to reiterate this and be super clear, I have absolutely NO reason whatsoever to write to CPAP DataCards in SleepyHead. Everything I need to do in SleepyHead to import data is read only.

But certain things can screw up on various operating systems, with *any* CPAP datacard, and are important to be aware of, especially if you need to routinely send the datacard in for compliance reporting purposes.

Not unmounting the SDCard properly before ejecting in *any* operating system can corrupt the File Allocation Table (FAT) on the SD card.
CPAP Machines often take shortcuts in their firmware implementation of the FAT/FAT32/etc filesystem driver, and miss little features like maintaining a second FAT copy, which while not strictly required, doesn't help out much when things go wrong.

Pulling the card out in the middle of rewriting a section of the File Allocation Table pretty much guarantees filesystem corruption..
Sometimes you don't know it's in the middle of rewriting this.. because of hidden operating system cache/thumbnail files being written to the card.

ResMed adds a simple "Journal" layer on top of the filesystem, which is designed to make sure write operations are completed, but it's got some serious weaknesses when files are copied in without it's knowledge. (This is mostly Microsoft and Apples fault, but ResMed should know better!)

Anyway, to be safe, it's a good idea to be extra careful with CPAP SDCards, and always write-lock the SDcard, and unmount and eject properly even if write protected.. some card readers don't honor the write-lock switch properly.

This same caution applies to users of ResScan, Encore Pro, etc...

F&P Icon users should be extra careful to unmount properly with the smartstick, as there is no way of write protecting this device.

Hope that makes sense: Just remember to write protect on inserting the datacard (if possible) every time you import, and always unmount and eject safely...

You might get away with yanking it out with a Camera card, but CPAP machines are an awful lot less forgiving when it comes to filesystem corruption...

/Mark

Is there something we can do to duplicate a copy if we need to replace the SDcard ever?

Sleepyhead 0.9.8-1 automatically makes a backup copy of your data each time you import it.
Various amounts of data are stored in your machine depending on the brand and model. That data will be automatically written to a new or blank card when you insert it in your machine. That data usually includes compliance data, since that is how everyone gets paid.

JimP wrote: always write-lock the SDcard, and unmount and eject properly even if write protected.. some card readers don't honor the write-lock switch properly.
/Mark

Can you make this clearer?

Are you saying that we should "write-lock" the SDcard before removing it form the CPAP machine?

Or before removing it from our computer after looking at the data in Sleepyhead?

calusa wrote: Can you make this clearer?

Are you saying that we should "write-lock" the SDcard before removing it form the CPAP machine?

Or before removing it from our computer after looking at the data in Sleepyhead?

Remove SD card from the cpap machine. You can't do anything to the slide thing to lock it while it is any the machine anyway...there is no way to get to it.
Then slide the write protect/lock on the SD card before putting it in the computer.
Do your usual download of reports.
Remove SD card and then unlock the write protect slide thingy.
Then put the SD card back into the cpap machine....if you forget to unlock it then the cpap machine can't write to the SD card when in write protect mode and will tell you ..."hey dude, this SD card is in read only mode and I can't put nothing on it this way...please unlock the SD Card."

I never bother myself. I am long past having to prove compliance or show my reports to anyone and if I have to erase a SD card it isn't the end of the world for me because I have any data I might want in my software reports anyway.
My computer is Windows 7 and it's the Macs or Windows 8.xxx that some to be the main culprit for putting extra files on the SD card and causing the ResMed machines to refuse to work with the SD card. Respironics machines don't care.
But I suppose I should say...don't do as I do unless you are like me and it isn't the end of the world to lose the data stored on the SD card.
I have enough trouble remembering to put the SD card back in the cpap machine as it is.

Having used computers quite a lot over the years (decades, actually), and having made my share of sleepy or just unthinking mistakes, I've learned to write-protect any media that has data that I care about, and keep backups *smile*. So I have my sleepyheaddata folder backed up. And always always always write-protect the SD card. It's a habit, if I take the SD card out of my cpap, I flip the write-lock tab. While I'm not worried about SleepyHead writing to my SD card, once it's mounted in my computer I could accidentally do something that I might regret *smile*. Maybe because I'm not much afraid of trying things or something *smile*. Even your computer crashing or a power glitch could corrupt your SD card.

Anyway, it's always good to have protection, you never know when the statistics will include you *smile*.

js12278 wrote:Is there something we can do to duplicate a copy if we need to replace the SDcard ever?

Copy the entire SD card to a directory on your computer. Name it something convenient. I have a folder where I put all my SD card images, and I name the directories with today's data, for instance 141011 if it's 10/11/2014. That way, the directories sort correctly by name.

I think you can copy this back to an SD card for PRS1 machines, but I haven't tried it. I know it won't work for S9 machines, although I've heard that ResScan will accept a "bogus" SD card like that even though the S9 machine will require you to reformat.

In theory, you don't need to "eject safely" on SD cards if you haven't written anything to it. I usually don't bother on my win7 machine.