Archos Av500 Problem

[ixus]

I recently connected my Archos AV500 to my PC as I had done many times before, and could only get a message stating that the drive was not formatted and asking if I wanted to ‘format now?’ !!!

Knowing that this would lose all the valuable data I had stored in it, as well as all the factory installed data, information, samples etc. I was a little concerned to say the least.

All that I had done differently recently, was to changes the settings to ‘windows device’ from ‘hard drive’ so that I could synchronise some stuff from a friend’s computer (he has XP … I use Win 2000) … and then back again.

It’s not the end of the world if you have to format the hard drive … but it was a bloody nuisance!

Others may be interested in the lessons learned!

1. Copy all factory installed files from the Archos on to your PC hard drive or write a CD / DVD.
2. Download the latest software from www.Archos.com and keep a copy safe (not on the Archos!) … there was a new version last week by the way …1.5.12
3. If you record any films, music, or TV that you want to keep forever then don’t keep them on the Archos!
4. Factory installed samples (photos & films), wallpaper, etc are available for download from FTP://support.archos.com
5. If you need to format the drive but it won’t talk to the PC through the normal USB, try plugging a flash memory card (the bigger the better) into the other (left hand) USB socket and copy stuff onto it.
6. Avoid changing back & forward between ‘hard drive’ and ‘windows device’ … not sure if this was the cause of the problem but you never know!
7.Always have mains power (not battery) when moving files around.

Hope this helps others avoid similar problems!

[xanadude]

Hi bud seems that i am having the same probs here.....
I have never before switched to the media mode only used as a hard drive.
I have only done the media switch to see if I can access the unit....

I does come up as a media device and I can see everything on the drive but I can only copy files up to the data folder.  

Doing the backup to storage card now but archos support I can say were of no use what so ever.  Answer re-dormat drive.......  

Pain in the but or what.........

[Qazeebo]

HOLD UP PEOPLE

DO NOT IMMEDIATELY REFORMAT THE HARD DRIVE.
 i had this problem also, and so what i did was to change it from hard drive mode to wmp mode. My computer recognised it fine. I left it plugged in like that for half an hour, synchronized  the archos with my wmp (it doesnt delete the material already there). Once it was  all synchronized, i changed it back to hard drive mode and it worked fine, just deleting any files wmp had added.. I have had no problems since.

[dhood15277]

HOLD UP PEOPLE

DO NOT IMMEDIATELY REFORMAT THE HARD DRIVE.
 i had this problem also, and so what i did was to change it from hard drive mode to wmp mode. My computer recognised it fine. I left it plugged in like that for half an hour, synchronized  the archos with my wmp (it doesnt delete the material already there). Once it was  all synchronized, i changed it back to hard drive mode and it worked fine, just deleting any files wmp had added.. I have had no problems since.
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Had the same problem on a windows2k machine but did transfer the files using xp in wmp mode. I did not try to sync the whole library. Unfortunately, wmp transferred the files to a new folder called unknown artist and I was not able to rename or make changes to the files in wmp mode. After changing the ARCHOS system mode XP still could not recognize HD. Here is a link to more info on this subject in this forum
[a href=\"https://www.oesf.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=16564]https://www.oesf.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=16564[/url].
Looks like the only recourse to get HD working is to reformat. We've had the AV500 for about three weeks and like it alot.

[danno]

I had the same problem a while back and found a solution on a forum somewhere using a program called testdisk 6.3. I'm not that clued up on exactly what it does (something to do with partitions) but when ever I get the message to format my drive, I run this program and everything is back to normal.

hope this helps.  cheers.