Memory card consistency problems?

[Kaze]

are the new cards backwards compatible if you turn NTFS compression off? you could make a new card, load it in the old version in the second slot and boot to the bios and copy your saves over that way

Need to specify that I am talking about the PCSX2 created images.

So it is really a corruption issue and not inconsistency?

I think avoiding corruption is only barely possible.
- Don't close applications abruptly with read/write access to the file
- Don't move the files too often between hard drives especially not if one of them or all are ancient.
- Check hard drive functionality from time to time
- Always make backups on a separate hdd.

But I think you know all of that already...

I know all that, and I generally only move the files from the internal HDD to the external one, then I only copy the files from there, leaving the ones on external untouched, but it seems like it's already too late by then. It's a 500GB partition and no other files are affected, only the .ps2 files. This has been happening for years on at least 5 different computers. So I kinda don't know what to do to prevent it.

[Blyss Sarania]

Certain games are prone to corruption(like MGS3). Is it possible you are playing one of these games consistently?

[Kaze]

Certain games are prone to corruption(like MGS3). Is it possible you are playing one of these games consistently?

I generally play JRPGs (Tales, FF, Star Ocean, Shin Megami, et cetera et cetera) with PCSX2. I'm on the go alot, so PCSX2 is really making it easier to play these away from home.

[Blyss Sarania]

AFAIK none of those have corrupting issues.

Can you upload one of your cards with a corrupted save, where the corrupted save is from one of:

Tales of the Abyss
Any FF
Star Ocean 3
Persona 3/4

(since that's the games I have of what you mentioned).

That way I can test. Preferably NTSC, altough if you have PAL I will take a look anyway(they can be converted).

Also forum attachments are broken since our server migration, so put somewhere like dropbox.

[Kaze]

AFAIK none of those have corrupting issues.

Can you upload one of your cards with a corrupted save, where the corrupted save is from one of:

Tales of the Abyss
Any FF
Star Ocean 3
Persona 3/4

(since that's the games I have of what you mentioned).

That way I can test. Preferably NTSC, altough if you have PAL I will take a look anyway(they can be converted).

Also forum attachments are broken since our server migration, so put somewhere like dropbox.

I have uncorrupted ones of Persona, Tales, Dragon Quest 8 and Star Ocean, and corrupted ones, but due to the massive amount of memory card files I've built up during my years, I have NO idea in which file those saves are located(can't open them anymore).
It may also be worth mentioning that all of these worked fine until they were backed up on an external HDD(on different HDDs and USB sticks too, apparently it doesn't matter as long as it gets moved from the HDD it was created on?).

[Blyss Sarania]

We had one other guy having a weird problem where moving his cards caused corruption. I wonder if it's like ref said and related to the NTFS file compression?

Either way just upload a couple, even if I don't have the right game I can look at the structure in hex to see if it's truly corrupted or something else.

[Kaze]

Uploaded 8 of the nonworking ones that I know has been working previously.
Here you go:
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/p5n4tli...2_Memcards

[Blyss Sarania]

Yeah they are completely corrupt, unfortunately.

Most are overwritten with FF, one is mostly 0s with a few random 77 7Fs in a pattern:

Here are yours:




And here is a good one of mine for reference:


There is unfortunately no hope of recovering any saves from these >_< That really sucks.

In the future I would do two things:

1. Turn off NTFS compression for all cards, just in case. Space is cheap nowadays anyway, and cards are only 8MB.
2. Backup your cards every now and again, just in case. And ESPECIALLY if you need to move them.

[Kaze]

1. Turn off NTFS compression for all cards, just in case. Space is cheap nowadays anyway, and cards are only 8MB.
2. Backup your cards every now and again, just in case. And ESPECIALLY if you need to move them.

Question! Where do I find the setting for NTFS compression? I'm pretty sure I've turned it of in earlier versions, but I can't find it in 1.2.

And again, these are the backups :/

EDIT:
Found it. Pretty sure I always turn it off when creating new cards thou. Is it enabled by default on the cards created by a new installation of PCSX2?

[Blyss Sarania]

It's enabled by default, yes.

Also you can disable it at the OS level to revert any that have already been compressed.

Find your memcard folder. If it's blue, at least some are compressed. Back them up somewhere first, just in case this IS the issue. Then:

Right click->properties

Click advanced

Uncheck "Compress contents to save disk space"

Click OK

Leave "Apply to folders, subfolders and files" checked and click OK

Let that finish.