Strange Behaviour in Finder!

[Alan Gregson]

Has anyone seen this phenomenon before? Pro Tools is working fine in the background and this is only happening on the System Drive. If I leave the window open it eventually crashes or comes up with a blank dialog box. Any help would be welcome. Video attached, hopefully.

[IIO]

never seen this.

this is only when protools accessing the disk?

how much RAM is available to finder (raised it a bit in the get info, which is always a good idea?)

how much RAM is free?

[Alan Gregson]

Thanks for the reply!

No, this is even when Pro Tools isn't launched.

I have a persistent problem of startup failure which happens when the DAE INIT comes up. This is reported as a bus error. Pressing the shift key to start without extensions doesn't work, either. Eventually it will start up and Pro Tools will work fine, but something's obviously wrong somewhere.

I've tried changing the RAM chips but the problem still persists.

I ran a Verify with Disk First Aid yesterday and it reported a problem (Keys out of order, 4, 641) which it was unable to repair. Also, when booted off CD Rom there is no System Folder visible on my System Disk, which is weird.

The Largest Unused Block of RAM is 1.44Gb I can't check much else at the moment as it's all on the System Drive and I can't do anything in that folder for obvious reasons!

I'll probably have to change the Startup disk, which I'm reluctant to do as I have a few TC Plugins that have authorisations unique to this computer. I'm sure I read here somewhere that it's possible to clone a drive and retain all that kind of stuff. Perhaps some kind person could point me towards that if there's no alternative.

[Pushpull76]

Thanks for the reply!

No, this is even when Pro Tools isn't launched.

I have a persistent problem of startup failure which happens when the DAE INIT comes up. This is reported as a bus error. Pressing the shift key to start without extensions doesn't work, either. Eventually it will start up and Pro Tools will work fine, but something's obviously wrong somewhere.

I've tried changing the RAM chips but the problem still persists.

I ran a Verify with Disk First Aid yesterday and it reported a problem (Keys out of order, 4, 641) which it was unable to repair. Also, when booted off CD Rom there is no System Folder visible on my System Disk, which is weird.

The Largest Unused Block of RAM is 1.44Gb I can't check much else at the moment as it's all on the System Drive and I can't do anything in that folder for obvious reasons!

I'll probably have to change the Startup disk, which I'm reluctant to do as I have a few TC Plugins that have authorisations unique to this computer. I'm sure I read here somewhere that it's possible to clone a drive and retain all that kind of stuff. Perhaps some kind person could point me towards that if there's no alternative.

If the digisystem init fails, it is probably related to some hardware installed. Did you tried to esclude some cards from the system?

[Alan Gregson]

Hi, thanks for the reply. I have a Magma Chassis with 8 cards in there. All the cards pass DigiTest but I changed a bunch of them a few weeks ago and thought I'd found the winning combination. Maybe not...... I'll have to find time to go through them again, which takes a long time, obviously.

[Pushpull76]

Hi, thanks for the reply. I have a Magma Chassis with 8 cards in there. All the cards pass DigiTest but I changed a bunch of them a few weeks ago and thought I'd found the winning combination. Maybe not...... I'll have to find time to go through them again, which takes a long time, obviously.

Check the Digidesign guide to see if all the cards are in the correct position; for now, just try to start the computer without the magma card, probably there is a conflict on the PCI bus and it is generating problems to the hard disk controller.

[Alan Gregson]

Thanks for that. Before I try that, is it a possibility that the video card could be the problem? I've got an ATY in there but I have others I can try. Also, there's a USB card there which I never use. I'll try removing that, also.

[Pushpull76]

Thanks for that. Before I try that, is it a possibility that the video card could be the problem? I've got an ATY in there but I have others I can try. Also, there's a USB card there which I never use. I'll try removing that, also.

Try to start with a minimum system and, If all it's ok, start to add one card after another, to see what is causing the problem.

[Alan Gregson]

OK, thanks. I think I've got two problems here. The disk is corrupted, hence the "Keys out of order" from Disk First Aid, and the INIT startup problem which is something to do with the Digidesign hardware. Interestingly, I just took out the redundant USB card and it started first time. I also removed the Magma card and it started fine, though the disappearing System Drive problem is still there. I'm going to try a clone of the hard drive first and then go through the Digi hardware after that, I think. If I want to try to repair the hard drive what would people recommend for that? I've got Norton Utilities, but that could cause more problems than it solves in my experience. Unless someone knows better........

[IIO]

there are finder specialists here which know more than me about these things.

but you can be sure that this continious attempt to refresh a windows content is finder oder disk releated.

does it happen is all windows? e.g. could it be that it is caused by calculating the file size or trying to read a faulty filename?

[IIO]

you should also try to attach an other keyboard.

[Alan Gregson]

Thanks for the advice. It was only behaving like that on the System drive window. I've now made a new drive from a previous back up and it's all behaving normally, apart from the occasional bus error on startup, still happening as the Digisystem INIT comes up. The strange thing is that I seem to be able to get round it by pressing the shift key, though there is no "Extensions Off" dialog, so it clearly isn't working as it should. I still need to get into the Magma and start removing things but for the time being it's working very well, once it starts! I've also had no problems with my TC Plugins, so I'm guessing that the authorisations for these are stored somewhere else..... or something. I've never been sure about where those are.