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I know many people have the Alesis HD24XR & HD 24, 24 track hard disk recorders. In the past, numerous people have indicated that a loss of power and/or other type of connection problems can cause a disk to become unreadable by the machine or through the fire wire transfer unit. This recently happened to me. I figured, I would speak to Alesis directly at the AES show. Unfortunately, they were one of the few manufacturers that did not attend the show!

So after the show was over, I called them up since they never returned my e-mail requests for customer support. I spoke to a customer support person that apologized and indicated that it was a terrible loss. They do not offer any disk recovery services. The customer service person however, did tell me to "Google HD24 TOOLS" which took me right to this Dutch gentleman's web site. He's part of the Linix Consortium and as a group, developed software so they could use the FireWire adapter with their Linux -based systems. Along with that he indicated other useful purposes and ported over to Windows and Macintosh.

THIS IS INCREDIBLE SOFTWARE! ITS SHAREWARE so here are some links.

http://www.dnd.utwente.nl/~mrjb/hd24tools/

http://www.dnd.utwente.nl/~mrjb/hd24tools/download.html

I was able to recover everything along with repairing the header on the original disk drive. I'm sending him my $$. TOTALLY WORTH IT!

Not sure if this is very well-known or not?

THIS MAKES THIS MACHINE MUCH MORE VIABLE NOW!
Ms. Remy Ann David

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Comments

Boswell Thu, 10/18/2007 - 02:47

Yes, quite well known - it's recommended by the HD24 Yahoo users' group that every HD24 owner should have this software. The current version of the data transfer software only transfers data from the HD24 to the PC, but Marc is working on extending the functionality not only to include PC to HD24 data re-writing but also machine control via midi. Marc is the only person I know to have put enough effort into de-coding the Alesis header information to enable his tools to repair corrupted headers.

One other advantage of the HD24tools transfer software is that it will work reliably with the Vipower USB external drive adaptors and not just the FireWire ones, so can be run on PCs without FireWire. The Alesis HD24 caddies and FireWire adaptor are of course made by Vipower, but the Alesis transfer software does not reliably work with USB adaptors.

Other HD24 users' group recommendations include:
* always use a UPS when recording with an HD24 to avoid problems due to power glitches or loss
* put thin washers behind the caddy connector screws to ensure the connector seats properly when the caddy mounts in the drive bay
* don't run the HD24 in an acoustic environment where there are large low-frequency components, e.g. near a bass guitar amplifier

JoeH Mon, 10/22/2007 - 05:45

my hat is off to both of you - Marc AND Remy, for sorting this sort of thing out. I'm thrilled to read that people like Marc are out there, doing this sort of thing. (I wish someone would do the same for Fostex - I went through some similar issues back when I first got my 2424. They too have a proprietary disc format that pretty much keeps you out of the loop if anything bad happens.)

I recently went through some problems with Epson printers, and since the main company tech-support system was useless, I went online and found a host of other fixes, software and repairs. No thanks at all to Epson, of course...seems like a common problem. The "Little Guy" has to dig in and fix it him/herself.

Ridingfool Thu, 10/04/2012 - 21:41

Ok, I've been losing sleep, hair and probably tooth enamel (from grinding them) on a similar issue. I've had an HD24 for 7 years. Power went out while I was gone for three days this summer. I had everything on an UPS. Which of course did not last that long. The HD will turn on correctly if the drive caddie is not in it. If the caddie is in, it twitches on and off and on and, well, you get the picture. I turned it off by the hard switch in the back (wouldn't power down). Took the caddie upstairs to the computer room, hooked it up via my Alesis Fireport. Nada. Just a little hissing noise. Any suggestions on these problems would be appreciated. I decided the hard drive was now defective, bought a new Seagate IDE 80 Gig hard drive. Same response in the HD, and Firewire just goes on and then beeps with the red light flashing. Calling all manufacturers was useless and time consuming. Discontinued, why should we care. I see the mention of the "[[url=http://[/URL]="http://www.dnd.utwe…"]HD24tools[/]="http://www.dnd.utwe…"]HD24tools[/] ". I also see mentions of conversion caddies/downloads etc. to convert to SATA drives, which are still extant, and not going the way of the dinosaur, three years ago. I'm not super tech. I'm a musician first, and tech by necessity. But I can get things, if explained in detail. I'm seeking advice and info that'll get my heart and soul back on track (no pun intended). My need is how to get it operating again. The new disk drive may very well be defective and a separate problem, since I don't think my Fireport has any problem. It's never left plugged in. Probably should mention the storm responsible for the power outage also made things very moist in the studio (think very hot, very humid, and heavy rains w/air conditoner not functioning due to power outage. How can I utilize the HD2d tools without a hard drive? Reading the posts here suggests there is a way. So... enlighten my ignorance, and set me free to record again?