Today we spent more than 6 hours shooting a couple of comic sketches for a tv show we have in Costa Rica. We shot with a 330, in HD 24p, as we mostly do.
We stopped for lunch and when we got back and inserted the ProDisc back on the XDCAM HD this error message appeared on the screen: "Unknown FS!". We checked the manual and it means "unknown file system" and the solution to the problem is "Exchange or format disc". We exchanged the disc to continue shooting but I am afraid we lost ALL we had previously shot. I still haven't formatted de disc. I tried accesing the disc via FAM and A/V Ilink modes, it didn't work using the camera and my laptop, neither using the deck and a desktop back at the editing studio.
Deck gives the same error message!!
If anyone has any ideas-solutions it would be great! At least I would like to know what could've caused this because I certainly don't want it to happen again!
As usually happens with new technology, besides all the great improvements, sad surprises usually await! (we had also lost another sketch because a camera man formatted a disc while explaining another guy how the camera works!)

This is the first time I have heard of such an error happening.

When you go to the Diagnosis Menu and then Disc Status, what does it say?

As Simon said, go into Diagnostic Menu. There is a choice for Disc Salvage which might get back your footage.

Did the camera suffer a power loss while the disc was running? Were these Sony Prodiscs or TDK? Is your camera running the updated firmware?

-gb-

Thanks for the response!
I will try the diagnosis menu this afternoon and see what happens.
From what I know, nothing irregular happened during shooting. the only thing I can think of is that it rained a little bit, but we covered the camera with an umbrella. We are using Sony Prodiscs.

Nothing worked! When I insert the disc on the camera the "Unknown FS!" message pops up and it doesn't let you perform any function that has to do with the disc. I entered Diagnosis Menu and salvage was disabled from the available option. Disc status was "no system files" or something like that.
It looks like we lost that material!

Is it possible the disc got tampered with over lunch?

Anybody try plugging a laptop in and look at proxies while you were away?

2 days after the error happened we were shooting again with another disc. Suddenly, the following warning appeared on the screen: "Error 02-026" and the camera wouldn't record anything (the cameraman told me this same error had appeared before the "UNKNOWN FS!" message). The red warning light was blinking and we had to stop the shooting. After a few minutes of trying to restart or reset the camera we took out the disc and called sony's tech support. We gave them the error number, they said they would check and call back. Within a few minutes they were telling us it was a severe damage in the camera's laser, that they would replace the camera and that they were sorry if we had lost any footage. We lost 1.5 days of work indeed!!! (half a day with the first disc that was erased, half a day with the second and half a day with the shooting we had to cancel due to the camera). It appears the damaged laser erases the disc, including the "header" information which holds the "system file" information (I guess its the information that tells the camera the ProDisc was formatted for XDCAM HD, frame rate, etc). The guys at Sony knew about this error, so I guess ours is not the first defective 330. By now we have a new camera and we are reprogramming the lost days of shooting.
In case any of you sees Error 02-026 on your screen take the disc out as soon as possible or you might lose your work as we did!

It is a shame that you are having such problems. Never heard of this before. Although have you considered sending your disc to Sony to see if they can recover the data?

Yesterday, a cameraman from the Netherlands also posted a message on the XDCAM forum having this error (UNKNOWN FS). He wrote that it happened to a collegue after she had changed batteries. All of her data was lost. The camera didn't give an error code.

They managed to get the data back by sending the disc to Sony.

Just wondering if the cameras have had one almighty knock to kick to damage the lasers. Those things are extremely robust, but if the camera received a really nasty jolt, say during shipping, then it could have knocked things out of joint I suppose.

Okay, new info from Clive Canon over on the XDCAM users website. Apparently if you have the latest firmware installed (1.56) it will attempt to recover the disc from the unknown FS warning error.

Daniel, two things to check on your camera. The first is that it has the latest firmware. The second is that people are not removing the batteries until the blue light on the side of the camera has gone out (indicating that it has finished writing the file system).

I second Simons comment. XDCAM has been around for 5 years now and unknown FS errors are almost unheard of. It is vital that the battery or power supply is not removed until the blue access light is out, which can be a few seconds after the camera has been switched off.

Did the camera suffer a power loss while the disc was running?


That's what I was essentially asking earlier in the thread. A sudden loss of power or removal of power while the blue light was on.

I know Sony feels pretty confident in the prodisc mechanism because they warranty the XDCAM line for 2 YEARS PARTS AND LABOR. That's more warranty than their other professional stuff.

See attachment.

-gb-

That's what I was essentially asking earlier in the thread. A sudden loss of power or removal of power while the blue light was on.

I know Sony feels pretty confident in the prodisc mechanism because they warranty the XDCAM line for 2 YEARS PARTS AND LABOR. That's more warranty than their other professional stuff.

See attachment.

-gb-
Yes, and it was 7 Years on XDCAM SD. That is really unheard off.

Thierry.

Since the camera is not mine (the TV station owns it) the best I can do is recommend the firmware update. I am not sure if the cameraman took out the batteries while the camera was still working, but I don't think that happened. Still I'm gonna warn him about that.
For now, Sony gave us a new 330 and our show is looking as good as ever, I hope it was that we just had bad luck with that camera.
Thanks to you all for your replies.

...though you will hate to hear that:

I guess , since we´ve heard total loss of disc material THAT seldom, I have a very good feeling about the reliability of this media.

I guess you are one of the (?)% of disc/laser failures, being the statistic event.

Bad for you (I am really sorry) - but there MUST be some people with broken lenses, some people with a drive failure, some with CCD failure etc. The less people are affected, the better. No company will ever build a 100% failure free machine - from cars to cameras...

At least, I do not own a pdw YET, but coming from (of course) tape-work, I am really looking forward to take part in the XDCAM world...

"Kopf hoch" (head up, look forward) as we say in germany, hopefully you never never never see this failure again...

ULI