Write Failed While Recording

[Jeff Leites]

Does anyone know what could be causing occasional write failures on my Tascam DR-07 handheld recorder?

The manual just says that if you get the "Writing Failed" message, to turn it off and start over

[MikeRivers]

That's usually a result of a marginal flash memory card. It might also be from a low battery, particularly if you're using rechargeable cells, which have a lower starting terminal voltage than alkalines.

You might try re-formatting the memory card (after you've retrieved whatever you can, and care about, from it) and see if it complains. Try it with a near-dead battery if you want to take the time to experiment.

[Jeff Leites]

I think I did reformat the memory card after the last time I used it.  I don't use it very often, and my memory (not the card) has become marginal too

Maybe a lower capacity card would work better.  I don't really need the 16GB I'm currently using.

[philbo]

It's not a good idea to defrag a memory card.   Flash memory has a limited number of writes to each register (1 million these days, but it used to be 100K). 

If you start recording with a blank card, and erase it again before use, there's no reason it would ever become fragmented.

[Jeff Leites]

I would think that any card that can handle even SD video would be able to handle audio.

If the card works for 1,000,000 cycles, I should be able to fill it and reformat it for several lifetimes.