John Bowen Synth Design

I think the Compact Flash reader in my Solaris has failed. Yesterday, I turned it on and got the "empty" message on the preset screen. I turned it off, pulled the card, inserted it in the card reader in my Mac, and it said the card was uninitialized. I reformatted it (to FAT32; had to use a Windows laptop because it's not an option in Disk Utility any more), and then copied my backup files back onto the card. All good, seemingly. However, when I put it back into the Solaris, it still said "empty". I cannot save any presets or load any samples.

I'll get a new CF card and try it to double check. However, if it turns out that the CF reader in the Solaris has failed, is this a COTS item? Is it practical for me to replace it myself? I'm moderately good with electronics repair in general.

What’s odd here is that you must have been using it as normal when you went to power it up, so it had been working in place. I’ve not heard of the reader just failing like that - only if some pins became bent from frequent and careless insert & removal.

I’ll run this by some hardware guys in the business to see what they think.

John B.

Thanks, John. Yeah, I very seldom remove the card. Last time I did was about six months ago, the last time I backed it up.

I got another CF card, to see if maybe there was something funny about mine where my PC can read it but the Solaris can't. I copied the four folders onto the new card and put it in. Now it works! I don't know what is the deal with my factory card where my PC can read it but the Solaris can't. But it's working with the new card, so I'm good.

OK, good to know!