Whelp, turns out I have to eat my own words, as finally USB sticks have moved *past* what is compatible with instruments.
I recently purchased a Kingston 256gb, DT SE9 G3, it said Fat 32, so I made a backup of my current USB stick. I do this every 2-4 years, whenever I start to get the feeling that the stick is about to go... last time I was incredibly lucky, one folder had failed and instead of being 0, the files in it were supposed to be about 25 mb, ended up being 50gb due to the failed sector, and of course, were garbage.
Lucky because after I backed up to my PC, and then copied onto the new stick (that time a new Lexar, as the Kingston I'd ordered and paid for during black Friday from Amazon they later replied sold out, and simply refunded me...argh), it 'hung' up on that folder, and when I examined it, it was way too large (50gb?!) and it turned out I'd also backed up the bad sector that happened to be part of that folder.
No sweat, i hadn't changed that folder at all in 4 months, so I deleted that oversized folder from my Lexar, grabbed the previous backup of that folder, and pasted it in and Bob's your uncle, problem solved (the USB stick I'd just backed up completely cascade failed after that... hence why I said I was lucky).
Anyway, back to last week: new Kingston 256, copied all the files, they're all there, but almost *none* of them read on the keyboards!? WHat gives? bad sector? No, after 5 attempts to recopy, it turns out that while it says Fat32, it wasn't really; I tried formatting it on PC, and I no longer had the option to even format as fat32 because the capacity was "too large for fat32" unless I partitioned it (which from past experience is a terrible idea for instruments). I forced a DOS format on the USB to fat32 via the command prompt? Had to leave it running overnight, and when I came back, it *still* said failed because volume is too large for Fat32! (now the stick showed 0 capacity, Genos2 wouldn't even format it) so I had to quick format *again* to 256 exfat (which G2 can't recognize, format again *there* and *now* it works
So my previous advice about not formatting USB sticks, now only applies to 32GB and below. In case you're wondering, the original factory format for the new Kingston *did* work when I saved files onto it from the keyboards, but 95% of whatever I copied from my pc backups didn't load (even though checksum showed the files were the same). And no, it showed no errors on the USB stick
If you're getting a new stick, not backing up, it's still fine not to format it at all. But if you are restoring a backup copy, and need to copy from HD to your stick first? Format it on the KB!
So much for never having to format sticks; that advice now only applies to smaller ones (incidentally, I never had to format anything 128gb or below on the keyboards), 256gb apparently you might have issues.
My previous Lexar was also 256, so why didn't I have to format it on the keyboard? No idea, but I *did* need to format it on my pc (Windows 10 allowed me to format 256gb fat32, windows 11 didn't... or maybe there's a unique characteristic of the Kingston?). I had to format the Lexar on my pc because it wouldn't save files properly at all right out of the gate, until I quick formatted then everything was fine. It didn't even occur to me to try formatting on the keyboard, but I probably could've done that, too.
Mark
I recently purchased a Kingston 256gb, DT SE9 G3, it said Fat 32, so I made a backup of my current USB stick. I do this every 2-4 years, whenever I start to get the feeling that the stick is about to go... last time I was incredibly lucky, one folder had failed and instead of being 0, the files in it were supposed to be about 25 mb, ended up being 50gb due to the failed sector, and of course, were garbage.
Lucky because after I backed up to my PC, and then copied onto the new stick (that time a new Lexar, as the Kingston I'd ordered and paid for during black Friday from Amazon they later replied sold out, and simply refunded me...argh), it 'hung' up on that folder, and when I examined it, it was way too large (50gb?!) and it turned out I'd also backed up the bad sector that happened to be part of that folder.
No sweat, i hadn't changed that folder at all in 4 months, so I deleted that oversized folder from my Lexar, grabbed the previous backup of that folder, and pasted it in and Bob's your uncle, problem solved (the USB stick I'd just backed up completely cascade failed after that... hence why I said I was lucky).
Anyway, back to last week: new Kingston 256, copied all the files, they're all there, but almost *none* of them read on the keyboards!? WHat gives? bad sector? No, after 5 attempts to recopy, it turns out that while it says Fat32, it wasn't really; I tried formatting it on PC, and I no longer had the option to even format as fat32 because the capacity was "too large for fat32" unless I partitioned it (which from past experience is a terrible idea for instruments). I forced a DOS format on the USB to fat32 via the command prompt? Had to leave it running overnight, and when I came back, it *still* said failed because volume is too large for Fat32! (now the stick showed 0 capacity, Genos2 wouldn't even format it) so I had to quick format *again* to 256 exfat (which G2 can't recognize, format again *there* and *now* it works
So my previous advice about not formatting USB sticks, now only applies to 32GB and below. In case you're wondering, the original factory format for the new Kingston *did* work when I saved files onto it from the keyboards, but 95% of whatever I copied from my pc backups didn't load (even though checksum showed the files were the same). And no, it showed no errors on the USB stick
If you're getting a new stick, not backing up, it's still fine not to format it at all. But if you are restoring a backup copy, and need to copy from HD to your stick first? Format it on the KB!
So much for never having to format sticks; that advice now only applies to smaller ones (incidentally, I never had to format anything 128gb or below on the keyboards), 256gb apparently you might have issues.
My previous Lexar was also 256, so why didn't I have to format it on the keyboard? No idea, but I *did* need to format it on my pc (Windows 10 allowed me to format 256gb fat32, windows 11 didn't... or maybe there's a unique characteristic of the Kingston?). I had to format the Lexar on my pc because it wouldn't save files properly at all right out of the gate, until I quick formatted then everything was fine. It didn't even occur to me to try formatting on the keyboard, but I probably could've done that, too.
Mark
Statistics: Posted by amwilburn — Sun Jan 26, 2025 7:54 pm