Korg PA 500 blocked after loading set

[cabinets4amps]

I have a pa500 with the exact problem, and exact messages.
did anyone find a solution?

where would I find the sd ram in the unit to replace it?

thanks

[alfredokiwi]

theres SSD formatter on pa500..ive try it..keep hold INT3 then turn it on..(my earlier post is wrong..sorry)..then it will take you to ssd format page ..follow the intruction when it done u'll find "theres no OS" when u turn it on again..then instal the latest OS and the resources..done

after the message "no OS ..USB enabled" i cant load OS again ...any help
spit i tried to load 1.19all but immediately write : error loading package file

The internal flash Eeprom (NAND flash) has bad sectors and is corrupted, sorry the entire board should be replaced.

[alfredokiwi]

I have a pa500 with the exact problem, and exact messages.
did anyone find a solution?

where would I find the sd ram in the unit to replace it?

thanks

The internal board should be replaced, the NAND flash memory is soldered and can´t be replaced. The lack of internal proper cooling and working at high temps leads to the premature failure of flash devices.

[siebenhirter]

dont believe your board should be replaced in case of loading inconsistent datas.

if that would happen, everybody would be to angry to load sounds, styles or performances.

it is enough to reformat corrupted NAND-memory, to install the newest OS and to load resources and your keyboard will work again.

as there is no reformatting-software like for pa800, reformattin NAND is to do with servicemenue as described in service-manuals. this information you get from Korg. so did i and i am not angry to load sounds, styles, performances ...

cheers
siebenhirter

[alfredokiwi]

dont believe your board should be replaced in case of loading inconsistent datas.

if that would happen, everybody would be to angry to load sounds, styles or performances.

it is enough to reformat corrupted NAND-memory, to install the newest OS and to load resources and your keyboard will work again.

as there is no reformatting-software like for pa800, reformattin NAND is to do with servicemenue as described in service-manuals. this information you get from Korg. so did i and i am not angry to load sounds, styles, performances ...

cheers
siebenhirter

Supposedly both user performed a NAND memory formatting but the problem is after OS resources loaded to NAND memory. When you format a NAND flash without OS resources only a "erase" procedure is performed, but when you write the OS resources to the NAND a "erase + write data" action is performed. Formatting don´t recover bad sectors on NAND flash devices. These bad sectors if exists normally should be tagged as "do not use" and there is a soft procedure that do it which involves the use of additional programming code and a special memory access method fetching a "bad sectors table" that the Pa500 unfortunately lacks. In other words due the simplicity of the OS code the NAND memory must be in "good condition" without bad sectors.

To summarize on the transfer OS resources procedure the NAND is formatted at the same time, that's the real confusion.

Is the heat on the board that mostly destroy ICs and the first most affected are memory devices.

[siebenhirter]

Hallo Alfredo,
It is right, that formatting don´t recover bad sectors.

Maybe I have problems with english language, but on my opinion both members were loading incompatible datas. And they used a procedure “SSD-formatter” that would take them to “SSD format page” and than they found the instruction “there is no OS” etc. And they used combinations of buttons during power-on that does not check the NAND, but did something other I don’t know. But they did not perform a NAND-formatting!

Check and format NAND are simple serviceprocedures, to be necessary to do after you have loaded bad data. Usually keyboard get freezing or you get message like “device generic error” if you try to load some i3-styles or 128 sounds to usersound-bank 16, whereas capacity is only 64 to load etc.

Checking and formatting NAND will show the message “zero bad sectors”, and then it is possible to load OS from SD-card as described in manual.

Believe charly67 as he wrote he was loading user sounds bank when trouble occurred, keyboard frozed and was unusable and made the reset information that he got from Korg to fixed the problem.

But if there would be bad sectors, why not to check them with serviceprocedure to see if the NAND is in “good condition” and to get the information about amount of bad sectors, before you change a board?

It can not be necessary to change a board, after you loaded bad data. If that would happen, i had to change my board 5 times last six months. Make that simple reset with serviceprocedures as there is no reset-button on Pa500. And I can not understand why this resetting-procedure is so secret, because you get this information from Korg.

[alfredokiwi]

About the NAND flash "zero bad sectors" message this is a really good news because user are able to check memory integrity before loading OS resources.
Also is important to use the right OS resources file, so any user should check the NAND integrity with the "format" procedure.

Also in the case of bad sectors I think the system should return a "checksum error" or "error writing OS resources" message in case of bad sector on the NAND flash.

Thanks siebenhirter for your recommendations.

[charlie67]

The information about a reset for the pa500 is still available on Youtube. Search for “korg pa500 pictures” posted by seaboss67, and on Dailymotion, search for “korg pa500 pictures” posted by bingo73.

[Paolo@Korg]

Hi,

Since it seems this problem can happen more often than expected, we put the Pa500 Factory Reset in our web site. You can use this file to format the internal memory of all Pa500 exemplars (International or Local versions).

Please only use it in the event of the instrument not starting, due to damaged data in the internal memory.

The Reset file can be found here:

http://www.korgpa.com/en/support/produc ... tware.html
http://www.korgpa.com/en/support/produc ... tware.html

Best regards,
Korg Italy Team

[Thoraldus]

Thanks to you Paolo and all the Korg Team in Italy! I feel much better having this tool available should I ever need it.