Red-Drive formatting problems. Help!

[frazer]

Mostly, my camera and Red-Drive play well together, but occasionally, the formatting fails, mid stream, and the progress bars stops moving. After that, the camera won't recognize the drive, and if I try to format, it reports that it can't because the drive is too slow.

Currently running build 18, but it happened with 17, once, as well.

I've had luck, in the past, erasing it in Disk Utility and then reformatting on camera, but that's not working so well tonight, for some reason.

Anyone else have this problem and can offer advice?

BTW, I tried to search the archive, but couldn't find anything specific to this problem, so I apologize if this has been covered, already.

Thanks,
Frazer Bradshaw
DP, Oakland CA

 

[frazer]

I managed to get the drive reformatted and happy, but I'm still left with the question of why this is a problem in the first place? Anyone else having the same issue?

Thanks,
Frazer

 

[Dave Kudrowitz]

Formatting mode stuck

Formatting mode stuck

Yes, I have been having a similar problem. My camera gets stuck in formatting mode indefinitely and I am forced to power off the camera and try again. this usually solves it but it has been happening more frequently lately. 3 different drives, same problem. (B17 v 3.4.1)
I asked about this in a recent post about drive problems but not much response here.

 

[Alex Carr]

I occasionally see it with my camera and only one of my Red Drives, I have to reboot or reload to Flash cards to not stop production. I never have time on Set to format drives, SO I prefer cards anyway. that 90 seconds is awful!! The operator can't look through the viewfinder!! WTF?

 

[Cail Young]

Hmmmm. We just had this start happening with us.

Have you guys tried a different body?

 

[burnie]

This is probably our biggest problem. The camera will occasionally decide it does not want to recognize our red drive. When we boot up with the drive hooked up, the camera will hang on boot. When we plug in to a powered-up camera, it locks up the camera. It's always a fight to get it back to the point where we can format it on the RED, but once we do it solves the problem. Usually, we have to wipe it with a Mac first. The drive works fine on the computer and does not corrupt any shots when the problem starts. So it's annoying, but not back breaking.

If anyone knows why this happens, or even a simple remedy for it, I'll make you my new best friend. We're thinking about moving to build 18 (from 17) after our current shoot. We never had this problem before 17.